ILOILO City – For two weeks, this southern city is closing its doors on returning locally stranded individuals (LSIs).
In Resolution No. 001-2021, the Regional Inter-Agency Task Force (RIATF) approved the request of the city government for a moratorium on the repatriation of LSIs beginning today.
Uncooperative repatriates prompted Mayor Jerry Treñas to request for a travel moratorium.
“We have been recording positive [coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)] cases among our returning residents. It is disappointing that some are not cooperating with our safety health protocols,” lamented Treñas.
The mayor slammed defiant repatriates refusing reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction tests even if these were free of charge.
Now, Treñas with the COVID team is reassessing the city’s repatriation protocols, citing the threat of COVID-9’s new strain which scientists said is more transmissible.
“We have been considerate with bringing our residents home but if we relax our protocols, our constituents’ health will be jeopardized,” the mayor further said.
Aside from LSIs, the city also requested for moratorium on the inbound travel of returning overseas Filipinos but the RIATF has yet to approve it.
Based on the City Health Office’s City Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit data, LSIs and ROFs comprise two percent – each having 76 and 88 cases, respectively – of the 4,709 total COVID-19 cases in the city as of Dec. 31, 2020.
Local cases, meantime, comprise about 96 percent or 4,520 of the total cases.
Earlier, President Rodrigo Duterte approved a more relaxed quarantine restriction for the southern city – modified general community quarantine for the entire month of January./PN
