Manila City Mayor Isko Moreno said on April 27 that Tondo might be placed under total lockdown in order to curb the district’s high number of COVID-19 infections.
The district has the second-highest number of cases in Manila. According to Infection Prevention and Control Committee Program Co-chair Maria Lydia Bautista, there are 644 cases of COVID-19 in the city. Of those cases, 129 are from Sampaloc and 94 are from Tondo.
Moreno told TV Patrol that Manila’s local government is studying how to implement a lockdown in Tondo. It will most likely mirror the Sampaloc lockdown, he added.
On April 23 to 25, the district of Sampaloc underwent a “hard lockdown” where residents were prohibited from going out of their homes for 48 hours. Only health workers, police and military personnel, government employees, pharmacy staff, drug store staff, workers in death care services, barangay officials, and media practitioners accredited by the Presidential Communications Operations Office and the Inter-Agency Task Force were exempted from the lockdown.
The hard lockdown was accompanied by rapid testing where 21 individuals from Sampaloc tested positive. Said cases will still undergo a confirmatory PCR test.
