All classes in the elementary and high school in this southern Cebu city, whether modular or face to face, are suspended starting on Wednesday due to a surge in coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) cases, the mayor announced.
Mayor Gerald Anthony Gullas, in a statement posted on social media on Tuesday, said the decision was arrived at after his talk with local officials of the Department of Education (DepEd) following the implementation of Alert Level 3 in the entire province, and to prevent schoolchildren from contracting the virus.
Gullas clarified, however, that despite the suspension of classes, school officials will not shorten the students’ summer vacation, noting this was promised by Division Superintendent Evangel Luminarias.
The mayor also said his suspension order applies only to public schools under the DepEd.
“For our private schools, I am giving our private school administrators and officials the discretion to suspend their classes. It will be up to them if they will suspend their classes or not,” Gullas said.
The city has 31 new Covid-19 cases recorded on Monday, which increased its total number of active infections to 242 from just nine cases on New Year’s Day.
Of the 22 barangays in this coastal component city, only two have no cases currently recorded by the City Health Office.
The top three villages with the highest number of cases are Dumlog, San Isidro and Biasong.
The city has registered a total of 5,264 confirmed Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic in 2020, but 89 percent or 4,687 have recovered.
Gullas urged residents to help the city government in its quest to fully protect the populace from Covid-19 through vaccination.
“Even though Talisay has reached 70 percent fully vaccinated of the eligible population, I still ask all of you to get vaccinated or get boosted,” the mayor appealed to the residents.
He said the most important way to battle the pandemic is through vaccination, even as he pointed out the difference in the current surge as compared to the spike driven by the Delta variant in late 2021.
“While there are more cases now all throughout Cebu, it’s different from the scenes during the last surge where people were lining up in the hospitals nangita ug (looking for) oxygen or nag (using) oxygen sa mga awto nila (while still in their cars),” Gullas said.
He noted the data from the Department of Health (DOH) which showed that those who are fully vaccinated and received booster shots have mild symptoms as compared to the ones who are not vaccinated.
Source: Philippines News Agency
