EXECUTIVE Director Em Ang of the Bacolod Emergency Operations Center said they are not keen on imposing additional restrictions and all guidelines stated in the previous executive orders issued by Mayor Leonardia will still be implemented.

Ang made the statement Wednesday, November 3, after the National Inter-Agency Task Force replied that the request made by Leonardia to downgrade the status of Bacolod from Alert Level 4 to Alert Level 3 is “not subject to appeal.”

Ang reiterated that they cannot impose additional restrictions because, despite the alert level status of Bacolod, the city’s coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases are now decreasing.

Citing the data on the decreasing trend of Covid-19 cases in Bacolod, Leonardia asked IATF head and Health Secretary Francisco Duque III to downgrade the city’s alert level status.

Ang stressed that they respect the decision of the national IATF on retaining the alert status of the city to Alert Level 4.

Ang said based on the alert level classification of the Department of Health (DOH)-Western Visayas, Bacolod City was classified under Alert Level 3.

As of November 2, records from the DOH-Western Visayas showed that Bacolod City’s Average Daily Attack Rate (Adar) or the number of new cases over the past 14 days per 100,000 population was at 9.21 percent and the city’s two-week growth rate stood at 56 percent.

It added that the positivity rate of Bacolod was at 17 percent while the hospital utilization rate was at 64.18 percent.

As of Wednesday, November 3, Bacolod’s active cases was down to 997.

Ang said they expect that the Covid-19 cases in Bacolod City will continue to decrease because they intensified implementation of the Prevent-Detect-Isolate-Treat-Reintegrate (PDITR) strategy where they suspended all the home-isolation and all the Covid-19 patients were immediately extracted from their homes.

Aside from the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test, she said the City Government is also using the rapid antigen test for the fastest result.