Quezon City’s coronavirus disease (COVID-19) situation has reached an “alarming” level following its report of around 218 new daily cases in the past week and the detection of at least 17 cases of new variants, Mayor Joy Belmonte said Wednesday (March 10).
Belmonte believed that the detection of 13 cases of United Kingdom variant and four cases of South African variant caused the “rapid spread and surge” that the city is currently experiencing.
“Hindi lang sa sinasabi na nagkulang tayo sa pagsuot ng mask, ng face shield, ng social distancing ... hindi naman ganyan kataas o kalala yung pagkukulang natin to the point na nagcacause sya ng surge na ganito kalaki (It’s not only because we fail to wear face masks and face shields and observe social distancing as it would not really reach a point that there would be a surge as big as this),” Belmonte told reporters in an online press conference.
“So, sa tingin ko talaga malaki ang kinalaman ng presensya ng variants na ito sa biglang pagkalat ng sakit na ito (I believe the presence of the variants has something to do),” she added.
The city’s current COVID-19 situation is already “serious,” Belmonte pointed out, that the local government had to impose granular lockdown on several areas to contain the spread of the virus.
From 12 on Tuesday, there are already 14 areas under lockdown in the city, where people, including workers, are not allowed to go out for 14 days.
“We only identified 12 lockdown areas. Kaninang umaga, pagkagising ko 14 na po sila. Ganyan po kabilis ang pagkalat ng virus na ito (Earlier when I woke up, 14 areas are already on lockdown. That’s how fast the spread of the virus is). We have some barangays as well na yung barangay hall mismo ay lockdown (that the barangay halls are even on lockdown),” she said, noting that three barangay halls have been temporarily shut down to test their employees for COVID-19.
Data presented by Belmonte showed that the city saw a 190.66 percent increase in its new daily cases. From February 2 to 8, the number is only at 75. But from March 2 to 8, it already reached 218.
The city’s positivity rate also increased during the same period by 132.5 percent—from 4.0 percent to 9.3 percent.
The top three barangays that reported the highest number of increased daily active cases are Batasan Hills (83), Commonwealth (65), and Pasong Tamo (56).
“Yes, it’s a serious increase. Yes, we should be alarmed. Yes, we should be disturbed,” Belmonte said. She told her constituents to avoid going to crowded places.
No city-wide lockdown needed yet.
Although the city is already experiencing a COVID-19 surge, Belmonte said a city-wide lockdown is still not needed.
Belmonte made the remark as she said in a TV interview in February that she might consider a lockdown.
“I mentioned (before) that 200 (daily cases) is already a red flag to us. Ibig sabihin noon kailangan na nating bantayan talaga ang ating hospital (What we meant before that we needed to watch closely our hospitals),” she said.
“But then the worst we ever reached is 400... ‘Yan yung talagang nabulabog na yung buong city wala na talaga tayong malagyan sa mga pasyente (That’s the time that the whole city was already alarmed because there was no more facility to accommodate new patients). But we're not yet in the stage where we should be lockdown our city,” she added.
Belmonte believed that currently the city is “just on a stage where we should be adopting restrictions that we believe will help curtail the spread of the virus.”