As cases spike, city residents reminded of health protocols

Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas once again appealed to the public to observe minimum health protocols after the city recorded its highest number of Covid-19 cases for the month of March last Monday (March 8).

“Cases are going up. Please continue to observe minimum health protocols. This is the highest so far! The vaccines are not yet here and we need to protect ourselves,” Treñas said in a statement on Tuesday.

On March 8, the city recorded 16 new additional Covid-19 cases, all local transmissions in three households and one workplace.

This is the highest number of Covid-19 cases recorded in a day for the month of March 10. The second highest was 14 cases each on March 2 and 3; 11 cases on March 1; 8 cases on March 4; 7 cases on March 6 and 6 cases each on March 7 and March 5.

From March 1 to March 8, the daily average Covid-19 cases in the city was 10, with 82 total recorded cases so far.

Meanwhile, despite the easing of protocols of the other neighboring local government units (LGUs) Treñas announced that present protocols for arriving passengers in Iloilo City from National Capital Region (NCR) and Cebu will remain to prevent the possible surge of Covid-19 cases in the metro.

Treñas said that passengers are required to secure negative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test 72 hours before their flight bound to Iloilo City.

The mayor assured that they will change the said protocols as soon as the cases in the metro go down.

“We wish to inform everyone that the present protocol requiring negative RT-PCR tests 72 hours prior to the flight for all passengers going to Iloilo City from NCR and Cebu is to make sure that the surge in cases happening there will not happen to the city. As soon as the cases go down, we will change the protocols accordingly. Please give us your understanding,” he said. (ERS)