The Taguig City government has recorded 22 new cases of coronavirus disease, bringing to 1,516 the total of confirmed cases in the city as of Monday.
The city's public information office said the new cases came from the areas of Bagumbayan, Wawa, Fort Bonifacio, and Tanyag.
Mayor Lino Edgardo Cayetano said the recent spike in the number of COVID-19 cases was attributed to the aggressive testing and contact tracing done in areas that were placed on a localized lockdown.
These areas are a construction site in Bonifacio Global City, where 327 of the 691 workers tested positive for COVID-19; and four areas in Lower Bicutan, where 111 out of the 2,104 tests conducted so far tested positive.
"We acted fast and these areas were immediately contained. More cases are expected as the city government continues to aggressively test. The target is for 10 percent of the city population to be tested before the year ends," said Cayetano.
"We are one of the cities leading in testing and having done more than 12,000 tests and having covered 2.16 percent of the population. The strength of the Taguig testing program is the wide infrastructure that includes 31 testing centers, two drive-thru COVID-19 testing sites, with 36 contact tracing teams and a strong partnership with the national government testing facility," he added.
The city government has five quarantine facilities, and is planning opening a 500-bed mega-quarantine facility at the Lakeshore area in Barangay Lower Bicutan.
"The city aims to slowly open this facility in a few weeks," said Cayetano.
"In line with this, we urge the public for their full cooperation.
This is so the city government can immediately conduct contact tracing, testing, and if needed, impose a localized quarantine, which may mean imposing a quarantine on a house, a unit, a building or a street," he said.
Cayetano said they are expecting that cases will continue to go up but localized lockdown is the key to transition to a new normal.
"We don't want to quarantine at the city or barangay level. As much as possible, we want to further localize lockdowns so we can be more specific about the areas we will investigate if there is unidentified mass transmission on the street or cluster of homes or buildings. A localized lockdown immediately stops the spread of the virus and allows us to conduct an investigation unimpeded," he explained.
The localized lockdown is imposed by the Safe City Task Force, upon the recommendation of the City Epidemiology Disease Surveillance Unit.
The city government also temporarily closed offices, facilities, restaurants in the city that have had cases or have not complied with health standards and will work side by side with them in order to curb possible transmission.
"We remind the public and businesses to continue to follow health protocols. Rest assured that the city government continues to work to ensure your protection," said Cayetano.