Cebu City mayor appeals for GCQ status

Cebu City Mayor Edgar Labella has asked the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Region 7 to place his city under General Community Quarantine (GCQ) instead of Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine (MECQ) from June 1 to June 15.

“Our strategic community testing has already been completed and we are confident that the City of Cebu is ready to transition into General Community Quarantine,” said Labella in his letter addressed to DILG 7 regional director Leocadio T. Trovela, who also chairs the Regional branch of the Inter-agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF).

Labella reasoned that even with the 2,013 Covid-19 cases in the city as of May 27, they only had 25 deaths or 1.2% fatality rate. He added that their recoveries have also reached 393 or 19.6% percent as of May 27.

“Our medical experts in the city have pegged the critical utilization rate at 40%, the doubling time in the city is more than seven days and there is significant indication that there is a continuous reduction of additional cases in the city,” he further said in his letter.

Labella argued that these reasons justify a transition into GCQ by June 1. “But with the corollary discretion to place critical areas under segmental and sequential lockdown,” he added.

The IATF on the national level recommended MECQ status for Cebu city on June 1 following the increase of its positive cases. The city had 89 new cases on May 29 while it also reported 321 new recoveries.

“Our recoveries have reached a total of 792 or 36.9%,” said Labella in his Facebook post Friday.

The city has been under ECQ since March 28 while the rest of Cebu province transitioned to GCQ on May 20.