BACOLOD CITY - The city of Bacolod maintained its modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) status this month as the number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases here continued to go on a decline.
Based on the records from the City Health Office, only 73 active cases were reported as of January 7.
The 73 cases were included in the total of 5,620 COVID-19 cases recorded since March when the pandemic broke out.
Of the total figure, 5,369 have recovered and 178 were listed as fatalities.
Mayor Evelio Leonardia said that towards December, they were pleased to see that the figures start to go down, as he thanked the members of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC), private sectors, volunteers, frontliners, and other people that matters that helped in the COVID fight.
“We are already getting zeroes in our figures in COVID-19 tests, and that is very very substantial and inspiring,” Leonardia said.
In fact, he noted that 49 out of 61 barangays here or 80 percent of the total villages have already been declared COVID-19-free.
The decline in COVID cases started in October through the intervention of Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF)-Visayas chief implementer retired Maj. Gen. Mel Feliciano, who was deployed by the national government to Bacolod to oversee the COVID preventive measures, following the spike of cases in August.
“We went through some kind of a rollercoaster ride,” the mayor said, as he looked back to the struggles that everyone encountered to battle the virus.
Despite the continuous decline in COVID cases, Leonardia said that monitoring and implementation of health protocols will continue amid the recent figures.
Now that we have reached this stage, we still have to wait and see what will be the results after the Christmas season, he said.
“This is such a challenging and unpredictable ride that we will be having,” he added.
But he assured the Bacolodnons that Bacolod was on track, considering the recent development on the COVID-19 vaccine, which the city is preparing to procure once it is already available.