CEBU City Mayor Edgardo Labella has ordered a total lockdown of Barangay Luz on Friday, April 17, 2020 after an additional 82 residents from Sitio Zapatera tested positive for the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
The new cases brought the total number of infected residents in the barangay to 135 within 11 days from the time the first Covid-19 patient was recorded in Sitio Zapatera on April 7.
Labella said with the lockdown, there will be a stricter implementation of the Stay at Home Order in Barangay Luz with round-the-clock police and military visibility, 24/7.
In a live feed on the Barangay Luz Facebook page, Barangay Secretary Dave Arañas said food supplies in the area will still be readily available.
However, residents who want to leave the barangay will now have to deal with the military and police, Arañas said.
Labella released P2 million to Barangay Luz to be used in dealing with the crisis.
In a press conference, the Mayor also announced that contrary to what was said earlier by the City Health Department (CHD), mass swab testing will continue in Sitio Zapatera.
He ordered massive tests to be conducted in the neighboring sitios of Barangay Luz as well.
Luz has around 31,200 residents living in 15 sitios. Zapatera has around 9,000 residents.
Mass testing
Officials of Barangay Luz had questioned the CHD’s announcement to stop mass swab testing in Sitio Zapatera.
Cebu City Health Officer Daisy Villa, in an interview on Thursday, said the 200 swab samples taken from Zapatera residents on April 15 would be the last batch of samples to be tested from the sitio as the whole area was now considered to be infected.
On Friday, Villa said the CHD will now conduct targeted swab testing. Only those with symptoms and close contact with Covid-19 patients will get tested.
She said the CHD will resume swab testing on Monday, April 20.
Villa also denied the claims of some residents that the CHD workers reused gloves when conducting the swab tests, possibly infecting others with the virus in the process.
“It’s just that all our gloves have the same color. That is why it is not obvious that we are changing it. We are still in our right minds to observe proper sanitation in conducting tests,” said Villa.
As the CHD recorded Covid-19 patients from both ends, as well as the center area of the sitio, Villa said the spread of the virus was evident.
For his part, Luz Barangay Councilor Maynard Salinguhay appealed to authorities, especially the Department of Health (DOH), to coordinate with barangay officials and provide them with enough information so that their constituents will be made aware of what is truly happening in their area.
Sitio Zapatera had cried foul over public accusations that most residents there were “hard-headed,” resulting in the fast spread of the virus.
Quick to judge
Sitio Zapatera resident Reino Ventura in an interview with SunStar Cebu lamented that some people were “quick to judge without even knowing what is really happening inside the sitio.”
Ventura explained the main reason for the spread of the virus was the density of houses in the area, the lack of public awareness, and the limited supply of water in the sitio.
Ventura said residents of the sitio’s 24 blocks have begun to implement their own measures to combat the spread of the Covid-19 with people assigned in each block to call out residents violating the rules on face masks, social distancing and roaming around without any valid reason.
“In our chat group, we send there photos of violators and when we notice that certain residents have consecutively violated the orders, the person will be lectured for awareness,” said Ventura.
Ventura said 40 residents have, so far, been reprimanded since the Facebook group was created on April 7, the first day of the sitio’s lockdown after their first Covid-positive patient was reported.
The CHD is currently tracing the whereabouts of all those who had contact with Zapatera’s first Covid-19 case.
Contact tracing
The first Covid-19 case in Sitio Zapatera was a walk-in patient at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center who had himself checked and tested for the virus.
DOH 7 Director Jaime Bernadas said on Thursday, April 16, that upon investigation, they learned that the patient had attended a wake which was also attended by a relative from Manila.
Three days after the wake, the patient was admitted in the hospital. With this, he said, DOH presumed there has already been transmission within the patient’s family in Sitio Zapatera.
That was how they traced the patients’ other relatives who also tested positive for the virus, he said.
Bernadas said DOH believes there has been continuous transmission inside Sitio Zapatera which was why they initially recommended to the City Government to put the sitio under lockdown.
Among the patients in Zapatera are nine-month-old twins who contracted the disease from their parents.
As of now, residents of Sitio Zapatera are being contained and monitored.
Should one manifest symptoms of the disease, they will be brought to a health care facility, Bernadas said.
Bernadas said asymptomatic Covid-19 patients must still be contained and isolated in a quarantine facility.
“The last priority would be the house if it has the capacity to accommodate. But if it doesn’t, then the patient should be put in a quarantine facility,” Bernadas said in Cebuano.
Patients must at least be three meters away from each other, Bernadas said.
“We are waiting for the City to put asymptomatic patients in Sitio Zapatera in an isolation facility. They admitted some to the Cebu City Medical Center where the staff of the City Health and the City Government are. They are also trying to move those who tested positive to the Zapatera Elementary School,” he added.
He then called on the public to help the government in fighting against the current pandemic by staying at home.
“Dili mo magsuroy-suroy (Do not loiter around),” he said.
Cebu City has logged a total of 84 new Covid-positive patients on April 17 — 82 from Sitio Zapatera and two from Barangay Labangon.
This brings the total number of infected persons in the city to 161.
Labella said the two new Covid-19 patients from Labangon are from Sitio Sto. Niño, A. Lopez, and Katipunan St. bringing the total number of Covid-19 patients in the barangay to three.
The Covid-19 patient from Sitio Sto. Niño is a family member of the first reported Covid-19 patient in the area, while the one from Katipunan St. was found positive when the patient went to one of the city’s cluster clinics for consultation. (JJL, WBS)