Spike in Lucena City COVID-19 cases due to influx of people –mayor

Lucena City Mayor Roderick Alcala on Saturday attributed the rise in COVID-19 cases in his locality to the influx of people while nearby provinces were placed under stricter quarantine classifications.

"Sa aking tingin po, dahil tayo lang po ang MGCQ nang maghigpit po ang ating mga kalapit na probinsiya at bayan, dito po sila napunta," Alcala said at the Laging Handa briefing.

(Since we are the only area that is under an MGCQ when our neighboring provinces and towns were placed under tighter classifications, people went to our city).

Lucena City currently has the largest number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Quezon province totaling 2,809 confirmed cases with 253 active cases.

The city had a total of 2,449 recoveries and 107 deaths.

Checkpoints were put in place and more than 500 COVID-19 marshals were deployed in response to the increasing COVID cases, the mayor said.

Alcala added that the local government was preparing for the allocation of more vaccine stocks in their city, which has a population of almost 300,000.

Alcala said they only needed to vaccinate around 160,000 to achieve herd immunity in their city.

Lucena City was one of those areas placed under a modified enhanced community quarantine due to steep increases in the number of COVID-19 cases over the past few weeks. — DVM, GMA News