ILOILO – Stricter province-wide quarantine rules may not be necessary for now, according to Gov. Arthur Defensor Jr. even as he acknowledged that certain areas of the province were seeing a surge in cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
“Area-specific” or granular lockdown is what the provincial government will be observing.
“Nag-meeting kita sa mga concerned mayors of areas nga may significant rise sa COVID- 19 cases,” Defensor said.
He was referring to mayors Laurence Anthony Gorriceta of Pavia, Carina Flores of Oton and Ninfa Garin of San Joaquin.
Officials of the Department of Health (DOH) and Mayor Stephen Palmares whose component city of Passi reverted to enhanced community quarantine also joined the recent virtual meeting.
“We will implement containment measures and go back to the basics sa pag-implement sang guidelines sang National Task Force on zoning and containment strategies,” Defensor said.
Under the granular lockdown, only houses, streets and puroks with COVID-19 cases and those of persons with “level 1 exposure” to the cases – the patient’s family and close contacts in the barangay – are covered, said Dr. Jane Juanico, head of the DOH-6’s Infectious Disease Section.
Barangays with clustering of at least five local cases will be placed under “critical zone,” she added.
Such zone, according to Juanico, will also be enforced in towns with 25 percent of its total barangays having five COVID-19 clusters.
“We do not want nga bilog nga barangay ang ma-suffer. As much as possible, households or streets sa isa ka purok lang [ang i-lockdown] if ma-meet nila ang criteria,” Juanico said.
She noted that DOH-6 is closely monitoring Passi City with 284 cases, San Joaquin (53), Oton (31), Pototan (26), Pavia (25), and Santa Barbara (10).
“Most of them barangay level lang ang [COVID-19] spike,” Juanico said.
As of Jan. 30, Iloilo’s cumulative cases of coronavirus disease 2019 hit 3,596 since recording started in March last year.
But with 3,062 cases having recovered and 104 deaths, the province’s active cases stand at 429./PN
