BACOLOD City – Twenty-two of the 61 barangays in this city are considered free from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
These villages no longer have records of active cases or local transmission for two weeks, according to the Emergency Operations Center Task Force (EOC-TF).
Three more barangays are set to be added to the list after the first 19 COVID-free villages were confirmed, said Mayor Evelio Leonardia, EOC-TF chairperson.
The first 19 villages with zero active cases in the past 14 days were barangays 4, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 31, 33, 36, 38, and Punta Taytay.
“These barangays should maintain their status and the other barangays should also try to catch up,” the mayor said.
Leonardia noted that the “battleground” against COVID-19 is in the barangays, pointing out that at the height of the city’s confirmed cases in the past months, all 61 villages have positive cases.
He also said that despite the city’s high number of cases, it has a recovery rate of 87.75 percent, or 4,098 cases out of the total 4,670, with 454 active cases and 118 deaths as of Oct. 22.
Earlier this week, retired Major General Melquiades Feliciano, the chief implementer of the Inter-Agency Task Force-Visayas, cited the decreasing number of infections since October.
He attributed the decline to effective interventions and systems being implemented by the EOC to curb local transmission.
From the third to fourth week of September, the city was averaging 50 cases per day. Between the first and second week of October, cases have gone down to an average of only 25 cases a day.
On Oct. 21, the city recorded only 13 new cases, while on Oct. 20, only four, the lowest daily record since June. (With a report from PNA/PN)
