By Calvin Cordova
CEBU CITY—Heavy traffic marked the first day of the re-implementation of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) here.
After easing up some quarantine protocols in the previous weeks after the city was downgraded to general community quarantine last June 1, police once again enforced stricter inspections in border control points that caused long lines of vehicles around the city.
Police Brig. Gen. Albert Ignatius Ferro, chief of the Police Regional Office Central Visayas, appealed to the public to be more patient as stricter measures will have to be implemented to arrest the rising cases of COVID-19 in the city.
“If we will not implement stricter protocols, we will have bigger problems. It is better to have these efforts. We need to be patient with the strict implementation and maybe we will arrest the increasing number of cases,” said Ferro.
Based on the June 15 data of the Cebu City Health Department, the city already had 3,613 confirmed COVID-19 cases with 1,874 recoveries and 39 deaths.
Ferro said he understood the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) decision in ordering that the city reverts back to ECQ.
“The decision is based on statistics. The past week, the cases really spiked. There were days that additional cases each day were by hundreds. We didn’t have a downward graph,” Ferro said.
City Mayor Edgardo Labella echoed Ferro’s call for the public to expect stricter border controls in different boundaries separating the city from Talisay, Mandaue and Balamban town.
In an interview with radio station dyLA, Labella said only workers of companies delivering essential services will be allowed to get through the control points.
Labella said he will be appealing IATF’s decision reverting the city back to ECQ.
“I am asking the public not to panic just because we are back to ECQ. We will comply but in the next few days we will make the necessary appeal. I am asking everyone to observe discipline,” Labella said in Cebuano.