ILOILO City—The Department of Health (DoH) warned that Western Visayas region may again be placed under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) if situation gets worse after lockdown measures have been eased.
Dr. Ma. Julia Villanueva, DoH assistant regional director, reminded residents of Western Visayas that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) remains a threat despite the downgrading to general community quarantine (GCQ) from an almost two-month ECQ.
“We do hope that GCQ protocols will be followed so that we may not revert to our previous quarantine status,” Villaneuva emphasized in an online press conference.
This is after residents of Aklan, Antique, Capiz, Guimaras, Iloilo, and Negros Occidental provinces as well as the highly urbanized cities of Iloilo and Bacolod started flocking in droves to public places after the entire region has been downgraded to GCQ since May 16.
“Business were opened to facilitate essential services and product distribution, which may have been depleted during the lockdown period,” Villanueva said.
“We understand that everyone is excited to go back to what we used to be before this COVID-19 pandemic. However, we would like to emphasize that the war against COVID-19 has not yet ended,” she added.
Villanueva urged residents to stay home if they have no important transactions after it has been observed that it is hard to implement physical distancing in public places when there are too many people.
As of May 19, Western Visayas did not record any new positive COVID-19 case.
The region still had a total of 104 cases, which only had 28 active cases.
A total of 66 people have fully recovered from COVID-19 while the death toll remains at 10. (Tara Yap)