DAVAO CITY — The city government of Davao lifted the hard lockdown imposed on a densely populated barangay here effective 12 noon, Monday, July 20, or 16 days after the entire area was placed under the most restrictive quarantine measure to cut the transmission of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
But the local government said hard lockdown will continue to be imposed in some puroks and households in Barangay 23-C after the results of a series of reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests, conducted from July 15 to July 17, showed that these were the areas where most of positive cases were found.
The results of the three-day RT-PCR tests have yet to be released as of 10 a.m. on Monday.
The city government has yet to announce the number of households and puroks in the barangay that would remain under hard lockdown. The Barangay 23-C is composed of seven puroks, with an estimated population of 18,000.
The duration of the lockdown remained unclear, but Mayor Sara Duterte, in her previous interview, mentioned that should there be an extension of this quarantine measure it would be for another 14 days to complete two incubation periods.
For areas within Barangay 23-C under hard lockdown, security and health protocols would continue to be strictly observed, while food and other basic necessities will be provided the affected residents.
“These actions are being taken to prevent the massive spread of the killer virus in and outside of the area due to confirmed positive cases,” the statement of city government read.
The Barangay 23-C is one of the four areas in Davao City that reported COVID-19 cases through community transmission, which meant that there were patients whose exposure to a COVID-19 positive could not be established. The other three areas were Agdao District, Buhangin District, and Mintal.
All four areas reported 104 cases through community transmission as of July 16.
Barangay 23-C was the only one among the city’s 182 barangay that was placed under hard lockdown last July 4, after it had recorded the highest number of COVID-10 cases since the outbreak started in March.
The entire city was placed under ECQ from April 4 to May 15, general community quarantine from May 16 until June 30, and modified general community quarantine effective July 1 and has been extended until end of this month.