Iloilo’s COVID situation ‘stagnant’, guv says

By Joseph B.A. Marzan

Iloilo Governor Arthur Defensor Jr. on Wednesday said that he was still unsure of the province’s community quarantine status after July 31, 2021 amid the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Data from the Iloilo Provincial Health Office (IPHO) as of July 20 showed that the province has logged 15,210 confirmed COVID-19 cases (2,983 active, 11,862 recovered, and 365 dead).

From July 1 to 20 alone, the province added 2,763 new cases, or an average of 138 new cases per day.

This is higher than the number of new cases confirmed by the IPHO between June 1 to 20 (2,691 new cases), with an average of 135 new cases per day.

By category, 92 percent of the cases (13,986) were of local transmissions, 5 percent (812) were Locally-Stranded Individuals (LSI), 2 percent (298) were Returning Overseas Filipinos (ROF), and 1 percent (114) were Authorized Persons Outside of Residence (APOR).

The top ten local government units with the most number of confirmed COVID-19 cases were Oton (1,354), Passi City (1,086), Pavia (937), Santa Barbara (838), Miag-ao (640), Pototan (572), Concepcion (545), San Joaquin (522), Guimbal (501), and Leganes (438).

As to the number of active COVID-19 cases, Oton is on top of the list with 197, followed by Concepcion and Cabatuan (188 each), Pavia (178), Santa Barbara (172), Pototan (145), Passi City (143), San Joaquin (120), Leganes (111), and Leon (109).

Pavia logged the most number of COVID deaths as of July 20 with 30, followed by Oton (29), Santa Barbara (20), Barotac Nuevo (22), Leganes and Banate (16 each), and Passi City, Miag-ao, Pototan, and Tigbauan (14 each).

Most of the COVID-19 deaths in the region were senior citizens 61 years old and above (219), followed by 51 to 60 years old (80), 41 to 50 years old (33), 31 to 40 years old (20), 21 to 30 years old (10), 1 to 10 years old (2), and 11 to 20 years old (1).

Fortunately, the Department of Health-Western Visayas Center for Health Development said on Monday that it has yet to detect the Delta variant of COVID-19.

The Delta variant (B.1.617.2), which was first detected in cases from India, is said to be more contagious than previous COVID-19 variants.

 

Confirmation of two Delta variant cases in Antique was cited by the national government as the reason for placing Iloilo City and province under Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) last July 16.

Defensor told Daily Guardian that the COVID-19 situation in the province “has not grown, yet has not reduced.” Because of this, he has no idea of the province’s CQ status after July 31.

He said that his aim in the current ECQ is for COVID-19 cases to go down in the province.

“I don’t know yet [what the CQ status will be], because I have really no idea. Right now, the [COVID] situation is the same. [Our new COVID cases] are not going down, but at the same time, they are not going up to [critical] levels. Our daily average is sustaining. But what we want is for that to go down,” the governor said.

The governor issued on Tuesday Executive Order No. 263, series of 2021 citing the anticipation of an ECQ extension in the province.