Tabuk City puts 4 barangays under lockdown vs COVID-19

BAGUIO CITY — The Tabuk City Inter-agency Task Force on COVID-19 is imposing a lockdown in barangays Bulanao Centro, Bulanao Norte, Agbannawag, and Bado Dangwa starting Monday to address the surge in COVID-19 infections from community exposure.

Tabuk City is the capital of Kalinga province.

Mayor Darwin Estrañero said the lockdown will last for at least five days.

The lockdown will be equivalent to an Enhanced Community Quarantine, where movement of people will be severely limited. The mayor is set to issue an executive order detailing the full guidelines of the lockdown soon.

"There are a lot of pros and cons to imposing a lockdown, but definitely we have to prioritize the health and safety of our constituents," the mayor said at the emergency meeting of the CIATF .

Dr. Henrietta Bagayao, city health officer, said the lockdown is needed for contact tracing activities with hundreds of close contacts to be accounted for after 67 new infections were recorded last week, the highest surge in cases seen in Tabuk City so far.

Dr. Bagayao said the city’s quarantine facilities are also now at either full capacity or overcapacity, posing a problem as to where to admit new patients if there will be no respite on new infections.

Returning residents are still arriving at the borders daily and posing threat of ‘imported’ cases. 

As of Friday, Tabuk City has 120 active COVID-19 cases, distributed as follows:

• Bulanao Centro – 51
• Bulanao Norte – 13
• Agbannawag – 8
• Bado Dangwa – 8
• Casigayan – 4
• Dagupan West – 4
• Dilag – 4
• Dagupan Centro – 3
• Bulo – 2
• Calaccad – 2
• San Juan – 2
• San Julian – 2
• Appas – 1
• Bagumbayan – 1
• Bantay – 1
• Cabaruan – 1
• Laya East – 1
• Laya West – 1
• Lacnog – 1
• Naneng – 1