Lapu-Lapu appeals for lower alert level

CEBU, Philippines —  Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Junard "Ahong" Chan has appealed to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases to downgrade to Alert Level 1 the city’s alert level status. The city is currently under Alert Level 2 until the end of the month.

Chan made the appeal as he welcomed the COVID-19 Coordinated Operations to Defeat Epidemic (CODE) team at JPark Island Resort and Waterpark in Maribago, Lapu-Lapu City yesterday.

The mayor personally requested Secretaries Francisco Duque of the Department of Health and Vince Dizon of the National Task Force Against COVID-19. Chan said Lapu-Lapu City is one of the highly-affected cities in the country due to lockdowns and strict border controls resulting in loss of jobs and many economic activities.

The local government and the people of Lapu-Lapu have been heeding the national government’s call in helping in the battle against COVID-19 as well as in the vaccination drive.

“For the past several months now, we have been keeping our figures(Covid-19 cases) low with and now with no new cases to ensure the safety of our people and ensure an environment where the Coronavirus can no longer proliferate, we heed the call of the national government and aggressively campaign for vaccination,” said Chan.

Chan claims to be among the first highly urbanized cities in the country that have achieved herd immunity through vaccination.

“We are among the first urban centers in the country to have achieved the 80% herd immunity…However, we have yet to be categorized under alert level 1 after we fell short of the 70% requirement of vaccinated senior citizens,” Chan added.

Chan said they have already addressed the backlogs in encoding the vaccinated individuals.

“I take pride in informing this assembly that we have achieved 73% of vaccinated senior citizens after we encoded the 16 thousand plus backlogs from January to March of this year,” said Chan.

“With this development, I would like to take the chance to appeal to the IATF to place Lapu-Lapu under level 1 category. Our presence here today is a testament that we have bounced back from the pandemic and our city is now back on track,” Chan stressed.

Duque assured Chan he will ask the National Vaccination Operations Center to revalidate the records and see if the three metrics for de-escalation have already been achieved including keeping its caseload classification low, health care utilization rate to less than 30% and the vaccination coverage of the general population is already more than 90%.

Now, it’s just going to be the validation of Chan’s claim of having reached the required 70% coverage of senior citizens in the city that is needed.

“We are just waiting for the National Vaccination Operations Center for validation and hopefully by Monday we will be informed with certainty determining that such a particular metric has been complied with,” said Duque.

Chan is looking forward to it and has already been welcoming local and foreign tourists into the city.

“Our doors are now open to welcome everyone, local and foreigners alike basta lang bakunado,” Chan ended. — FPL (FREEMAN)