DAVAO CITY – Residents in congested areas of Davao City hardly follow basic health requirements to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which has resulted in more local transmissions in communities, an official of the Department of Health (DOH)-Davao said.
Dr. Cleo Fe Tabada, head of the Regional Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit of DOH-Davao, said during a virtual press conference that the situation in some congested places here has become “critical” as most residents have not complied with health protocols such as wearing of face masks, staying indoors, observing physical distancing, and frequent hand washing.
“In all these, what is most common is that these occurrences are in congested places or rather in places where houses are so close together that they cannot help but to be in contact with each other even though you tell them not to, but when they have to go to their windows and alleys, people will eventually meet one another,” she said.
She added that health authorities noticed that many of the residents did not follow the protocols when they were in their neighborhood.
“This would really go up. Even though we have instituted lockdowns because the lockdowns are supposed to keep them from spreading, supposedly to allow the person to stay in the house so that he cannot spread the virus and won’t infect those around him and other people in the communities,” she said.
Tabada added that lockdown might not work if the people continue to disregard basic protocols.
The Davao City Covid-19 Task Force placed Purok 8 of Barangay Kapitan Tomas Monteverde under “hard lockdown” effective 1:30 p.m on Monday after 65 residents tested positive of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) through the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test.
A statement released by the local government said the hard lockdown was enforced to “preempt the possible massive spread of the infection in the area due to confirmed positive cases.”
As of August 20, the DOH-Davao reported 1,843 cases with 1,322 recoveries, and 60 deaths.
Of the total cases, 1,175 were in Davao City, 145 in Davao de Oro, 198 in Davao del Norte, 97 in Davao del Sur, 38 in Davao Occidental, and 190 in Davao Oriental.
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