By: April Therese Tan
Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia lifted the province-wide curfew hours effective yesterday, February 18, 2022 amidst the declining COVID-19 cases within the Province, an increased vaccination coverage, and continued implementation of minimum public health standards
Garcia issued Executive Order No. 5 stated that the Provincial Government of Cebu finds it prudent to lift its curfew limitations within the province during the implementation of Alert Level 2 in order to begin the shift towards the new normal.
Garcia’s EO however stated that there shall still be a province-wide curfew from 11:00pm to 4:00am for minors below 18 years old except when they are accompanied by their parent/s or for an essential or work purposes.
It can be recalled that the provincial government has implemented a province-wife curfew from 11pm to 4am amidst the surged of COVID-19 cases that “has irreversibly affected millions of lives and families wordwide and its unprecedented speed of transmission has placed a huge burden on essential area of governance, most importantly in vulnerable sectors as the economy, education and healthcare”.
The governor’s EO added that sometime in January 2022, there was a surge in COVID-19 cases owing to the Omicron variant but due to proactive meausures of the provincial government, however, the number of active COVID-19 csses in the province have significantly dropped.
Data released from the Department of Health-7 shows that as of February 18, 2022, Cebu Province has 45 new COVID-19 cases with 1,069 active cases, 148 new recoveries with zero deaths.