Travels to and from Davao City discouraged

DAVAO CITY Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio has issued an order discouraging travel to and from the city given limited local medical services and facilities amid a novel coronavirus threat.

“We are asking people to cancel all their plans to visit Davao City,” Ms. Carpio, who is on self-quarantine after a recent trip to Metro Manila, said over state-owned Davao Disaster Radio late Thursday.

The City Information Office on Friday said there was no lockdown.

Davao City has the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC), the biggest state hospital in Mindanao. It is the only designated test center on the southern island for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Two of those confined at the hospital’s isolation facility, whose capacity is limited to 12 patients, are sisters from Glan, Sarangani province who tried to escape the mandatory quarantine in their hometown.

The sisters, both overseas Filipino workers who were scheduled to fly back to Japan, were under monitoring for COVID-19 at a Sarangani facility after showing symptoms of the disease.

They left and were traced to a hotel in Davao City, where a team of health and police officers picked them up on Friday morning.

Glan Mayor Vivien B. Yap told media she might file charges against the two for violating a presidential proclamation placing the country under a state of public health emergency. — Maya M. Padillo and Carmelito Q. Francisco