EXPLAINER: Plans for mass burial, body bags, ref vans, crematorium evoke dark picture, yet clear-eyed approach, on Cebu City Covid crisis. Rama adopts ‘hybrid’ measures, awaits Labella return.

WITH the number of new coronavirus cases soaring, two Cebu City officials leading the local response to the Covid-19 epidemic told the public in effect that the situation is bad and may get worse but the City Government has taken a host of measures to slow down the new surge.

Acting Mayor Michael Rama said the crisis is not just apparent, it is real, while Councilor Joel Garganera, head of the city’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC), said the way things are going is already “alarming.”

At a press-con Monday, August 9, the two officials fleshed out the report with disclosures of the city’s preparations, which at the same time support their bleak assessment of the emergency.

GARGANERA, OCTA. Councilor Garganera talked of opening cemeteries in two mountain barangays, possibility of mass graves, and securing refrigerated vans and body bags. If the upswing in cases and deaths would continue, he said, what happened in the US and Italy could happen here (“mahitabo diri.”)

Octa Research said Sunday, October 8, Cebu City was “now in the midst of its Covid-19 surge,” with its seven-day (August 1-7) average of new cases “rising to 271, or 22 percent higher than the previous week’s cases of 223 — and higher than the peak last February of 266.” Yet, Octa noted the reproduction rate has gone down: 1.51, from 1.69 last week and from 1.9 on July 22.

CEMETERY, CREMATORIUM. Plans for a city-owned cemetery and a crematorium started with moves in the City Council as early as a year ago.

Councilor David Tumulak, seeing that six cemeteries in the city were reaching full capacity, wanted a city-owned cemetery in Barangay Sapangdako. Last February this year, the Sanggunian said the project can wait. At the time mortalities remained low. Garganera said Monday Councilor Tumulak was already exploring two mountain barangay sites.

Councilor James Anthony Cuenco proposed a crematorium at the Cebu City Medical Center on Natalio Bacalso Ave. but “safety concerns” rejected the site. Monday, August 9, Cuenco said the city scholars’ building near CCMC meets the requirement of 100 meters away from a residential area. With the “red flag” raised on number of deaths and the workload of private crematoriums, Cuenco said he’d have the project fast-tracked.

REFRIGERATED VANS, BODY BAGS, MASS BURIAL in Garganera’s list of ways to dispose of bodies during the pandemic are the new items. Locals have read about them being used in foreign countries when funeral services cannot keep pace with the rate of deaths.

The EOC chief said the City will secure refrigerated vans from Mandaue. The hospitals, Garganera said, don’t have enough storage space for corpses. As to body bags, the EOC is requesting them from the Cebu Chamber of Commerce, with initial 100 pieces to be turned over by City Hall to the city hospital. Mass graves were not thinkable before but it would be an option, the councilor said, when normal burial practice would no longer be adequate.

VACCINATION, ISOLATION, HOSPITAL SPACE. Acting Mayor Rama’s list of “hybrid” measures is topped by (1) more vaccination sites and (2) more hospital bed spaces and isolation facilities.

The City is looking at malls and schools, other than the ones presently used, and sites in mountain barangays. Rama said list-up in PaBakunaTa.com “shot up by 400 per cent in the past few days” and 470,000 got the first dose and over 90,000 fully vaccinated.

Also being considered are house-to-house service, starting with homes for the aged, and such other ideas as “Mobile Vax,” drive-through at Noah in South Road Properties, and cluster vaccinations in barangays.

Some 250,000 people, Rama said, are waiting to be called, more are registering, and the City can only serve 5,000 to 7,000 doses a day.

The acting mayor didn’t mention supply of vaccines, which have come almost totally from the national government. Supply had been erratic before. That may not be a problem now but the vax sites and workforce are. So is the plan of the City to recruit 200 nurses: response to the call has been slow and unenthusiastic, reported EOC chief Garganera.

ANS, CCMC SPACES, PREVENTION. On rooms for isolation and treatment, Rama said the Mega Stay-in Isolation Facility at Abellana National School and the opening of three floors of CCMC will help accommodate more Covid cases. The stay-in facility is ready for its patients but the CCMC opening has been stalled.

Along with the twin-pronged top measures, Rama hammered on prevention of infections in homes, compounds and barangays, and in churches. He also batted for border control, arrangements of which will be agreed upon by Governor Gwen Garcia and Mayors Jonas Cortes and Junard Chan of Mandaue City and Lapu-Lapu City.

WAITING FOR LABELLA. Expecting his “extended” stay as acting mayor will end soon, Rama in his August 9 message said he awaits Mayor Edgardo Labella’s return from his medical leave “to continue what we have started.”

As he “reverts” to being the “elected vice mayor,” Rama said, they in the Sanggunian pledge to Mayor Labella “support to his initiatives to contain the resurging Covid virus.”