Tuguegarao City’s ECQ is extended
By Oliver T. Baccay
TUGUEGARAO CITY, Cagayan, Jan 29 (PIA) – -Local officials here decided to extend the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) status of Tuguegarao City for another five days.
Mayor Jefferson Soriano announced that the ECQ status here will be extended until February 3, 2021 as cases of COVID-19 here remain high despite the declaration of ECQ for 10 days.
Soriano said most of the additional cases recorded in the past days are the results of the recently conducted aggressive mass testing in the city, one of the strategies of the City Health Office to trace, detect and quarantine infected individuals to prevent further spread.
“We need to extend the ECQ status for another five days because the positivity rate in our city remains high. We aim to bring this down in the coming days,” Soriano said, who is still working while under isolation at the Peoples General Hospital for being tested positive for the virus.
Dr. James Guzman of the City Health Office said there were already 1,205 COVID-19 cases in the city, of which, 891have already recovered, 308 are active cases and 16 have died.
“As of today, we are waiting for the release of the remaining test results of some individuals who have availed of the aggressive mass testing which are still pending at the laboratories,” Guzman clarified.
Soriano further said that they will implement stiffer protocols with the extension of the ECQ to limit the number of individuals who are going out of their respective residences.
The mayor said they continue to provide food packs to identified affected families to include the beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilya, those who belong to poor families, tricycle drivers and other vulnerable sectors.
Soriano explained that the city government opted to expand the existing quarantine and isolation facilities as they could not afford to establish facilities in each barangay.
“We cannot afford to have one isolation per barangay because aside from the establishment of a facility, enough number of health workers and other personnel are also needed which we cannot afford to provide,” Soriano said.
The mayor further urged his constituents to follow the health protocols and be adaptive with the situation to lessen the number of COVID-19 positive cases in the city. (ALM/OTB/PIA-Cagayan)
