BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental, Philippines – Bacolod Mayor Evelio Leonardia has requested health Secretary Francisco Duque III, concurrent chairperson of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases to de-escalate the city’s General Community Quarantine Status to Modified General Community quarantine (MGCQ) effective today 16 October, 2020.
The mayor cited to the “continuous” decrease in the positive cases over the last two weeks, including a –58 percent growth rate, and a daily attack rate of 5.2 percent, compared to 11 percent of two weeks ago.
The mayor also cited the results of the mass testing among three market vendors, saying that the results yielded a 1.5 percent positivity rate as only 25 of the 1,665 vendors tested positive.
“The COVID 19 interventions that we have undertaken under a centralized system at our Emergency Operations Center (EOC), with the guidance and close supervision of IATF Chief lmplementer for Vlsayas R/Maj. Gen Melquiades Feliciano, have resulted to a continuous decline of cases of COVID-19 in Bacolod City during the last two weeks,” he said.
The mayor, in his letter, said as of 15 October 2020, there are 591 active COVID-19 cases and 4,491 accumulated cases In Bacolod Cit.
Recoveries, on the other hand, have reached 3,937 or 85.29 percent, “which correlates to good management and treatment of COVID-19 cases.”
Furthermore, there are only five deaths for the month of October, a lot while there were 64 deaths in September, or down by 59 cases.
The mayor also reported that the city already started the implementation of the Bacolod City Contact Tracing System (BaCTrac), a localized web and mobile application using the South Cotabato COVID Contact Tracing System, where over 200,000 individuals, and 2,500 establishments have registered.
The logical step, the mayor said, is the de-escalation of the community status of the city to MGCQ, which is considered the lowest community status.
