IATF Vice Chair
(File Photo) Bing Gonzales
A TOP official of the Inter- Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Disease (IATF-MEID) said the city will remain under the Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine (MECQ) after July 15.
“MECQ pa din ang Davao kasi mataas pa din ang cases,” Secretary of Interior and Local Government Eduardo Año, also the IATF-MEID vice chair, told TIMES on Wednesday.
Although he did not mention when the extension of the classification would end, Año reminded city residents to continue to be extra careful and to always follow health protocols to prevent further the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
On Monday, Mayor Sara Z. Duterte said the city government will submit arguments that will help convince the national task force to downgrade the classification of the city.
Although she was hoping that the classification would be downgraded, the mayor, however, said it is still the task force that will decide the classification of the city.
The mayor added that aside from the stringent policies and the enhanced tracing, testing and isolation processes for those who were infected, the city government has been intensified in rolling out its vaccination program.
She said that providing shots to the residents will help the city reduce the infection rate as the city government is expecting to provide about 1.2 million of its residents, including transients, by November.
She explained that based on past occurrences, the surge in the daily cases takes four months and she hopes that this time, the period will be shorter considering the continued rollout of the vaccination program.
President Rodrigo Duterte initially placed the city under MECQ between June 5 and June and extended it until July 15 due to the rising number of daily COVID-19 cases. The President even placed the entire region under the same classification.
