COVID-19 measures enough despite rising cases, guv says

By Joseph B.A. Marzan

Iloilo Governor Arthur Defensor Jr. on Thursday nixed the idea of elevating the province’s community quarantine (CQ) status or imposing tighter restrictions amid the rising number of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases.

Iloilo province added 119 new COVID-19 cases to its tally as of 2 p.m. on May 26, 2021 according to data by the Provincial Health Office (PHO).

PHO data also indicated that the province logged 1,165 new COVID-19 cases from May 1 to 26 alone, or an average of 45 new cases per day.

The latest numbers already surpassed the province’s highest peak of 926 new cases last March.

But despite these numbers, Defensor said in a press conference Thursday that he did not see any need to raise the province’s CQ status, citing current measures in place.

Defensor said the measures are “sufficient” to address the COVID-19 situation in the provinces and related unforeseen scenarios.

He added that an upgrade to a stricter regime will still have to depend on the assessment of the national Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID).

The governor issued Executive Order No. 155, series of 2021, which provides regulations under the Modified General CQ (MGCQ) regime.

Section 21 provided containment zoning parameters from the house level to the municipal or city level.

Referring to containment measures, Defensor admitted the impossibility of locking down entire barangays and providing home quarantine, citing low population density of barangays and inadequacy of homes for quarantine purposes.

The governor said barangay-wide lockdowns can only be imposed under Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ), the strictest of CQ classifications.

He said that lockdowns of a bigger scale, like that of a municipality or the entire province, would require economic considerations.

“Lockdowns on a municipal or province-wide level are just not practical as of this time for us. When you do something like that, you ask the question first: ‘What can the economy afford?’ ‘What can the people afford?’ That is the nature of locking down, and that is with respect to containment, which means that as of now, we cannot escalate,” Defensor said.

Defensor said the province is focusing on its “COVID-19 surge management mode” by addressing bed capacity in tertiary hospitals and those managed by the Department of Health (DOH).

The governor also issued a memo on Tuesday providing referral guidelines for COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients and special cases.

The Capitol is also communicating with the DOH-Western Visayas Center for Health Development (DOH-WV CHD) regarding the hiring of additional nurses to supplement the Western Visayas Sanitarium in Sta. Barbara as well as the district and provincial hospitals.

The move aims to beef up the bed capacity and staff of tertiary hospitals in Iloilo City, which also cater to patients from Iloilo province and other areas of Panay Island.

As to the hiring of nurses, the governor declined to provide a definite number and the funds for their salaries.

“Our problem is the tertiary bed capacity of our hospitals. They are here in the city, because the hospitals of the province are all Level 1 and they cannot treat COVID-19. So, what we are trying to do, in concrete terms, is that we will hire nurses, so that we will help the DOH. Once we have that, we will be more comfortable with COVID surge management,” he said.

Meanwhile, Defensor also issued Executive Order No. 174, series of 2021, on Thursday, which prohibits the sale, service, and consumption of alcohol in public places from May 28 to 31.