RESIDENTS of the Sampaloc district of Manila City will be barred from leaving their homes beginning tonight as the 48-hour “hard” lockdown imposed by Manila Mayor Isko Moreno on the neighborhood takes effect.
Moreno placed Sampaloc under total lockdown because of a large number of infected persons in the area. Sampaloc was reported to have 106 confirmed COVID-19 cases, and 135 suspected cases.
The hard lockdown is set to start at 8 p.m. of April 23 and end at 8 p.m. of April 25.
But while the strict regulation has yet to take effect, Moreno on Wednesday said this can be extended if the number of contamination continue to rise.
“It maybe (extended) kasi napaka-fluid ng sitwasyon sa ngayon and it may well happen to other areas in the city,” Moreno told DZMM radio.
He said his office has received requests from concerned citizens to also put their areas on a similar lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19.
“The general atmosphere is they want once and for all to shut down their areas but we have to consider things since the city is also a center of commerce, so these are some of the things we have to consider,” Moreno said.
The other areas in the city with high numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases include Tondo 1 with 62, Tondo 2 and Sta. Cruz with 48 each, Sta. Mesa with 42, San Andres with 33, Malate with 31 , Paco with 26, Sta. Ana with 24, Pandacan with 23 and Ermita with 16.
During the two-day hard lockdown, local health authorities will conduct disease surveillance, testing and rapid risk assessment as part of the city’s overall response measure.
During the shutdown, all residents of Sampaloc district are ordered to be strictly confined to their residence and are prohibited from going out of their homes. All quarantine passes will canceled.
Exempted from the prohibition are health care workers, police and military personnel, government employees, workers in pharmacies, drugstores and funeral homes, barangay officials and media workers accredited by the Presidential Communications and Operations Office and the Inter-Agency Task Force.
All other commercial, industrial, retail, institutional, and other activities not mentioned in above exemptions are also ordered suspended during the lockdown.
