ILOILO CITY—The strict lockdown in Barrio Obrero in this city has been extended after four new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been recorded over the weekend.
Mayor Jerry Treñas issued an order for a 72-hour enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in Zone 2 of the village.
Dubbed as “surgical extreme ECQ”, the city government is strongly monitoring 144 homes with 197 residents as they were the ones who had close contact with previous COVID-19 cases. The infected persons included an elderly man, who died last July 7 and was able to initially infect several members of his family.
Due to that initial case and the subsequent infection of close contacts, Treñas placed the village under ECQ last July 22.
The ECQ was supposed to end July 25 after the Department of Health (DOH) released the negative swab results of 44 people.
With ECQ in place, it means only essential persons will be allowed to go out of their residents, and that officials will be closely monitoring the area.
One of key concerns of officials was that many people in the village were informal settlers, and their households were located in very tight spaces.