National Task Force Against COVID-19 chief implementer and vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. has recommended that Davao City be again placed under general community quarantine (GCQ), according to a GMA News Unang Balita report on Friday.
Davao City is currently under modified general community quarantine but was declared a “restricted local government unit” on November 18 due to a spike in COVID-19 cases.
According to Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, they would follow the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Last week, Duterte-Carpio issued two executive orders (EO), prohibiting non-essential travel, mandating the use of FM pass, and limiting non-city residents to come in and out of the city.
On November 13, Duterte Carpio issued EO No. 62, prohibiting non-essential travels in the city.
Under EO 62, strictly defined “essential goods and services” as “all goods and services relating to the human need for food, medicine, medical dental, and allied-medical services, health and wellness, money, work or shelter.”
The EO also brought back the mandatory use of food and medicine (FM) pass, which should only be used by those who needed to buy food or medicine or go to the clinics and hospitals.
Galvez wants Davao City under GCQ again
According to the city’s contact tracing, most of the virus transmissions were bought by activities done after office hours.
The recent trend showed the COVID-19 transmissions were no longer contained within homes or small communities and within offices and establishments.
Dava City previously attributed its COVID-19 surge to returning overseas Filipinos (ROFs) and locally stranded individuals (LSIs) and not the local transmission.
EO 63 said, “there is a need to seek the assistance of Joint Task Force (JTF) Covid Shield for enforcement of authorized persons outside residence (Apor) and non-Apor travel into Davao City to insulate other LGUs from the effect of the surging cases in the city as well as to further protect the residents of Davao City.”
All Apors via land and air travel must submit several requirements before they will be allowed entry to Davao City.
Davao City has recorded 5,541 COVID-19 cases, of which close to 2,000 are active.