GINGOOG CITY, Misamis Oriental (PIA)—In response to a recently discovered coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 Delta variant case in the city, the City Government of Gingoog now braces their COVID-19 mitigation efforts and coordination with government national line agencies as the city goes under Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ).

“If the local government unit will initiate proactive measures then we can manage it, [such as] controlling the movement of our people, now since we have Delta variant in Gingoog, nakikita talaga namin na naaalarm talaga ang mga tao sa Gingoog City (we can observe that the people of Gingoog are alarmed),” said Gingoog City Mayor Erick Generales Cañosa during the Coordinated Operations to Defeat Epidemic (CODE) team visit, July 19.

With the city under ECQ, Cañosa said they are now working closely with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)-10 to ensure social assistance for its people, citing that they have already submitted the list of 41,188 families in the city of Gingoog affected by the ECQ.

Further, the mayor also said that they have strengthened the lines of communication with the Department of Health (DOH)-10 and Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG)-10 to boost contact tracing capabilities of its 139,460 strong population and 79 barangays.

“Sa ngayon po (For now), we are prepared for the ECQ but we would like to appeal of the national IATF for the support for our families considering the fact that mostly, we have 60 to 70 percent nasa hinterland barangays at nagtatrabaho sila sa city (that are from the hinterland barangays but are working in the city),” he shared.

In response to the mayor, National Task Force COVID-19 Response Chief Implementer and Vaccine Czar Secretary Carlito Galvez committed to ensuring a swift additional allocation of vaccines for the city and its priority tier list.

”We cannot have zero cases as of the moment but we can manage to mellow down the cases, and we are very happy in the city of Gingoog na grabe din ang tulong ng mga national agencies as amin (of the pouring of support from the national agencies), rest assured we will work together to fight COVID-19,” Cañosa said. (VPSB/PIA-10/Misamis Oriental)