MANILA, Philippines – The entire Barangay 20 in the Philippine capital of Manila will be placed on "total lockdown," Mayor Isko Moreno ordered on Monday, April, 13.
According to Moreno's Executive Order No. 19, the lockdown will take effect at 8 pm Tuesday, April 14, and will be lifted after 24 hours at 8 pm Wednesday, April 15. The lockdown will be enforced by police and barangay officials.
This means that all residents – around 41,000 of them based on Manila's data – will be prohibited from leaving their homes, except for health care workers and uniformed personnel who are "rendering emergency frontline services, border control, and other critical services.
Why the total lockdown? Moreno ordered the lockdown after finding out through a widely shared Facebook video that around 100 residents in the barangay gathered for an amateur boxing match held along the street amid the ongoing Luzon lockdown.
Moreno's office also received reports of bingo games being held in the same barangay, causing worry about a burst of local transmissions of the coronavirus.
As of Monday evening, Manila has recorded 323 confirmed coronavirus cases, including 42 deaths and 27 recoveries. The city also has 490 patients under investigation.
The Philippines has a total of 4,932 coronavirus cases, with 315 deaths and 242 recoveries. Worldwide, the deadly virus has infected over 1.8 million people and killed at least 114,000. – with a report from Agence France-Presse/Rappler.com
