New Baguio Covid-19 cases /Church services open with rules

CITY HALL BEAT

Aileen P. Refuerzo

BAGUIO CITY -- The city government will boost its triage and testing schemes as new Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases emerged last week.

Mayor Benjamin Magalong said circumstances on the two new cases – the returning Baguio worker and the incarcerated resident – underscored the need to tighten the x-ray requirement in the city’s central triage and the necessity to expand random testing.

The returning worker was found positive of the virus after her x-ray result showed suspicious pneumonia necessitating a mandatory reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test which turned out positive.  As a result of the triage findings, the said patient was immediately isolated preventing disease transmission at once.

Because of this, the mayor said chest x-rays will now become a requirement not only for returning workers but also for all come backing residents as a precaution against the disease.

“We will now require x-rays among all our RBRs to ensure that no one with potential infection gets through the triage.  We will deploy x-ray machines that will be good for a 24-hour operation for a minimal fee of P180 for the cost of the film,” the mayor said.

“I hope people would understand that this is the way to go if we want to safeguard our city because we really do not know how many of our RBRs and workers are potentially infected,” he added.

He said triage records on construction workers alone showed that out of the 1,048 workers who came up from May 7-27, 11.9 percent were found to have pneumonia, tuberculosis and heart problems, all of which are comorbidities of COVID-19

Apart from the RBRs and workers, the city also contends with returning Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) now totaling 900.  The mayor said they are expecting around 9,000 in the coming days and the number is protracted to reach 20,000 in the coming weeks.  

The mayor said the case of the patient who was found positive while in jail highlighted the fact the prevalence of the infection remains unknown.

The patient who was committed to city jail only last May 28 was among those included in the random RT-PCR tests conducted at the facility.

He said the situation will remain unknown until such time that an extensive RT-PCR testing is done.

At present, the city is only able to conduct 10 percent random sampling for RT-PCR tests among the at risk population due to limited supply of kits.

“So it is only until we have an adequate supply of test kits and able to do extensive testing can we determine our actual situation thus we have to be always on our toes and remain vigilant.  We also have to be strict with our borders and we cannot simply ease up on all the sectors and let them all go out simply because we still do not know,” the mayor said.

He said there are around 17,000 RT-PCR test kits available at the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center and efforts are exerted to acquire more.

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The city government and the religious sector on June 3 agreed to reopen church services during the Modified General Community Quarantine period subject to guidelines compliant with the health and safety standards on Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) prevention and control.

In a consultation meeting attended by leaders of the religious organizations, Mayor Magalong acknowledged that church services are essential activities that should be allowed under the MGCQ.

As agreed, churches and groups will have to submit their guidelines to mayor and ocular inspection of their churches, mosques or prayer halls will be conducted.

Services will only commence after the approval of the guidelines and issuance of certificates of compliance by the city government.

Some of the rules discussed during the consultation meeting were:

*Limiting attendees to 10 percent of the capacity of the church, mosque or prayer hall. Senior Citizens and those younger than 20 will be allowed to join Sunday services but Sunday school for children will not be allowed still;

*Strict observance of all health protocols i.e. one meter-radius physical distancing, use of masks and availability of alcohol;  

*List of attendees with details must be made available for contact tracing; and 

*Time of Sunday services shall only be from 6:00 AM to 2:00 pm.

During the consultation, church leaders led by Baguio Apostolic Vicar Rev. Victor Bendico of the Catholic Church and Rev. Pastor Robbie Cases of the Protestant churches and Rev. Pastor Voltaire Acosta who heads the Presidential Commission on Religious Affairs committed to comply with all the precautionary measures as they do not want to complicate the COVID-10 problem and jeopardize the programs of the city government.

Pastor Casas acknowledged the need to limit attendees as although they could ensure safety protocols inside churches, they could not do so anymore outside of it considering that churchgoers would have to take public transport. – With reports from Leimara Phitaka