CEBU CITY – This city tallied 281 COVID-19 deaths in August, more than the COVID-19 fatalities recorded from January to July.
The figures should serve as a grim reminder that the public should remain vigilant as the city transitions to a more relaxed community quarantine status on Wednesday, September 8, the chief of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) said.
City Councilor Joel Garganera said Cebuanos should continue to "wear masks, observe social distancing, avoid gatherings, and get vaccinated" as new infections could still rise especially if the public will become complacent following the city's downgrading to general community quarantine (GCQ).
"With the lowering of the quarantine status, the public tends to get complacent, especially now that we are approaching the holiday season. And this is not on the basis of a mere speculation as we have experienced this in the past three surges that the moment we put our guard down, we are just putting ourselves into harm's way once more," Garganera said.
Like Cebu City, Mandaue will already be under GCQ starting Wednesday. Lapu-Lapu City will be under GCQ but with" heightened restrictions.”
While new infections have been decreasing, Garganera pointed out that hospitals in the city are still swamped with COVID-19 patients.
"We still cannot say that our hospitals are in the safe zone because the waiting time would still last longer because of the referral and triaging. Our hospitals are recovering, but it is not in a level that we can say that they have recovered," Garganera said.
"So despite the downgrade of the restriction, I request everyone to be as careful as they were when we were at the height of this pandemic. Otherwise, we might be spending Christmas under MECQ," Garganera added.
In the September 6 tally of the Department of Health Central Visayas, the city recorded 101 new cases and 178 recoveries, reducing its active cases to 3,572. The city has 33,896 recoveries and 1,206 deaths.
"Yes, all our efforts have really paid off with the cooperation between the city, the EOC, hospitals, private sectors, and our law enforcement agencies. Indeed, we are also experiencing a downtrend in the cases but let it be emphasized that we are still in the midst of it and have not attained a consistent low number of cases. We are still at three digits. Thus, there is still a possibility that it will increase again at any point in time," Garganera said.