Cebu Covid-19 updates as of mid-October 2020

Cebu is one of the areas in the country with the highest cases of Covid-19. It has gone on a lot of government-mandated adjustments in their effort to ‘flatten the curve’. Here are the latest updates in Cebu province, Lapu-lapu City, Mandaue City, and Cebu City.

Cebu City’s improving numbers

The COVID-19 situation in the city is definitely looking up as it enters its seventh month of lockdown and eighth week under modified general community quarantine (MGCQ). The recovery rate (as of this writing) is estimated to be around 91.3 percent, and a huge drop in active cases is observed (197 as of October 22).

More than half of the city’s barangays are confirmed COVID-19-free. There had been no reported transmissions in the last 14 days in 44 barangays, which leaves the remaining 36 barangays who still have ongoing active cases under tight surveillance by the Emergency Operations Center (EOC).

Cebu City’s road to recovery

The month of June has seen Cebu City get hit the hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic. The medical community declared exhaustion in the midst of the exponential rise in active cases which soared to several hundred a day. Hospitals were at full capacity, and people sick with the virus were running amok looking for facilities to accept them.  

Cebuanos were finally getting a grasp on the direness of the pandemic situation, and when the city was put under heavily militarized enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) for the second time, they were towed to full compliance with the health protocols.

Retired Philippine Army general Roy Cimatu, who was sent to Cebu by President Rodrigo Duterte to oversee the task force in battling the pandemic, entrenched all-encompassing city-wide restrictions. The movement of the people was severely limited, and penalties were imposed on even the slightest violations.

The contact tracing teams and isolation facilities were beefed up and received more funding. No one could be seen not wearing masks and face shields in public areas, and barangay-to-barangay travel was banned for a time. Working from home became the norm as business establishments were forced to operate on a skeletal level and or shut down, and grocery shops limited their operational capacity to a third.

Streets were empty and devoid of public transportation save for the city buses who accepted only a certain number of passengers. For a few months, a deathly hush fell over the once loud and never sleeping Queen City of the south. No honking cars, yelling pedestrians, peddlers of all sorts of merchandise, and raucous music.

Fast forward to October, the city’s quarantine status has been eased to MGCQ, and businesses are able to set up shop again amid strict working conditions. People are slowly crawling out of their homes, and the metropolis is once more bustling with activity. Schools are still closed, but now citizens are more ready to discuss the city’s prospects with more enthusiasm.

Extended MGCQ until December

The Department of Health (DOH) in Central Visayas expressed an interest in extending the MGCQ status of the city until mid-December. Spokesperson Dr. Mary  Jean Loreche said pushing for this extension could make Christmas season, which will undoubtedly have a high volume of people out and about, much safer for Cebuanos and that it is necessary to avoid complacency which could well lead to another breakout.