IN THE event of a "second wave" of Covid-19 cases, the Davao City Government will not be requesting the city to be placed under a stricter quarantine status, Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio said on Monday, March 22, 2021.
The Department of Health (DOH) recently reported a surge in Covid-19 cases in Metro Manila and Metro Cebu, which showed signs of a second wave.
The surge in cases has been attributed to the new variants of Sars-CoV-2 and diminishing compliance to minimum health standards.
Manila is under general community quarantine (GCQ), while Cebu is under modified GCQ (MGCQ).
Duterte-Carpio, in a previous statement, already warned of the possibility of a “second wave” if the city will continue to relax some restrictions and the public will not be compliant with minimum health protocols.
In the case of Davao City, Duterte-Carpio said placing it under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) or a modified ECQ (MECQ) is not recommended by the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF).
"Mag-request ba og ECQ or MECQ? Wala nay ingon ana. Dati pa during our first wave, katong pinakataas nato nga mga time nga daghan kaayo ang mga cases, nag-ingon na ang IATF nga dili na mag-ECQ or mag-MECQ (Will we request to place the city under ECQ or MECQ? We didn’t do that even before, during the first wave of cases, when we experienced a high number of cases. It was the IATF who said no more ECQ or MECQ)," Duterte-Carpio said in an interview on 87.5 FM Davao City Disaster Radio.
The mayor referred to the "first wave" as the period when the city was placed under MGCQ and had experienced a surge of Covid-19 cases beginning mid-October 2020 until January 2021.
At present, Davao City is under GCQ since November 20, 2020 and it is expected to end on March 31, 2021.
If ever the IATF will approve the city to shift to MGCQ, Duterte-Carpio said the city will still implement the same Covid-19 response and action plan if ever the second wave will be experienced during this period.
“We will try to prevent a second wave for Davao City,” she said.
One of the measures the city is implementing is its test-before-travel policy through an ordinance.
“Gi-unahan na nato na sa implementation sa ordinance nga kinahanglan duna kay 24-72 hours negative RT-PCR result para ka maka check-in sa airport (You will need a negative RT-PCR test result, 24 to 72 hours before your departure date, to be able to check),” the mayor said.
The city will also continue to intensify the monitoring of its communities for those with influenza-like illness (ILI) symptoms.
“Duna ta’y ipahigayon nga aggressive surveillance sa atong mga communities so maunahan nato ang mga [Covid-19] clusters (We will be aggressive in the surveillance of our communities to be able to prevent Covid-19 clusters),” Duterte-Carpio said.
She said they will be requesting those with ILI symptoms to get tested.
The city will also be reviewing its contact tracing strategy to prevent the second wave.
Based on the recent Covid-19 case bulletin as of March 21, Davao City has a current active case of 326.
When asked if the city is now ready to go down to MGCQ, she said: "Dili na kaayo important sa akoa sa pagkakaron kung unsa ihatag nga community quarantine classification (It is no longer important to us whatever community quarantine classification is given to us).”
She added that the provisions between GCQ and MGCQ are almost the same, particularly on the sectors and offices allowed to operate, and the number of allowed operational capacity.