Palace likens Cebu City’s COVID-19 data to “roller coaster”

July 16, 2020

Malacañang likened on Thursday the data on new coronavirus in Cebu City to a "roller coaster" as the number of deaths sometimes go up, sometimes not.

In a television interview, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said Cebu City could have been placed in a "more relaxed" quarantine classification as Interior and Local Government Secretary Eduardo Año in particular observed that deaths have begun to slow down.

"Remember in the past few days, we had, you know, in excess of ten deaths, there was a day it was 46, I think there was even one day when it was like 60; but, most of it was attributable to Cebu City," he said.

And while case doubling rate has declined and critical care has eased in Cebu as observed by an expert from the University of the Philippines, Roque said, "It was deemed best to put it only on MECQ (modified enhanced community quarantine) and not yet on GCQ (general community quarantine), because we don't know if the trend will hold."

"Because if you look at the data of Cebu, it's almost like a roller coaster, sometimes the death will shoot up, sometimes it will not. Meaning, that intense community transmission is still ongoing in Cebu," he said.

Roque said the government will observe what will happen in the next two weeks or until July 31. The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases recommends to President Rodrigo Duterte twice a month new quarantine classification in each province, highly urbanized city and independent component city.

"We will see if they can graduate already to GCQ," Roque said.

Duterte has agreed with the recommendation of the IATF, especially of Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu, to lower the quarantine classification of Cebu City from strictest ECQ.

He designated Cimatu to oversee the implementation of the quarantine measure in Cebu City, which was under ECQ for one month until July 15.

As of July 15, Cebu City has 6,292 COVID-19 cases. Celerina Monte/DMS