Baguio new lockdown rule

CITY HALL BEAT

Aileen P. Refuerzo

BAGUIO CITY –  Mayor Benjamin Magalong said a new lockdown rule prohibiting even workers from going in and out of barangays undergoing contact tracing for a maximum of 48 hours is necessary to limit the movement of people who might have come in contact with the confirmed Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and interrupt transmission of the virus.

                "Please understand and allow us to do our work.  Contact tracing is a crucial component of our fight against COVID-19 and your cooperation is a must," the mayor appealed.

The mayor last July 30 issued a memorandum spelling out the lockdown procedures for contact tracing which included a 48-hour time-out within which contact tracing teams accomplish their job and eventually determine the extent of the lockdown.

During said period, only the following will be allowed movement: barangay officials, health care and social workers, uniformed personnel, emergency response service providers, cargo and logistics services, government workers with essential functions, persons authorized by the barangays to procure essential needs, workers in utilities like water, electricity, telecommunications and waste management and members of the media.

The 48-hour time frame allows contact tracing teams to complete their mission of tracking down contacts of positive patients and allowing people including workers to go in and out while it is being undertaken would defeat the purpose.

Within 48 hours and in most cases even less, the teams interview the patient, cull information on his/her whereabouts; identify and classify those he/she had been with; track and inform the contacts; facilitate testing  isolation and quarantine protocols; and expedite the analytics using the computerized contact tracing tool to identify further links of the patients. 

                Once they have a full grasp of the situation, the teams can recommend whether to expand or limit the coverage of the lockdown to a certain area. 

Lifting of lockdown orders will only be done upon the recommendation of the teams after ensuring that all contact tracing activities have been completed, the mayor said.

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This, as Magalong said he was counting on city residents to remain calm and cooperative amid the continued surge in Coronavirus disease (COVID-19 cases in the city.

 "Our people do not have to be afraid.  They just have to be careful. They have to make sure that they are aware of what is going on and that is the reason why we are very transparent by informing them every day about the new cases so they would know and be aware of what they have to do," the mayor said.

The mayor assured that the city government knows what is happening on the ground and is acting on it as the situation warrants.

He said the increased number of cases which ballooned by 91 from July 24 to August 7 was a result of aggressive testing and contact tracing and the number is expected to continue to swell as COVID response operations continue.

As of press time August 7, the city has a total of 152 cases with four deaths.

He said that the COVID-19 is not likely to go away in the near future and so people have to learn to live with it. "We have to learn to co-exist with it," the mayor said.

He asked residents to observe the minimum health standards: wear masks properly and at all times, wash hands, observe proper hygiene, follow physical distancing, avoid closed, crowded spaces and close-up conversations and limit going out of their homes to essential needs.

"For the next two weeks, please stay home and avoid travels unless absolutely necessary.  And please sustain all our health protocols, too.  It's the best we can do to safeguard ourselves and our families," the mayor appealed.

He also urged workers to avoid using common utensils for eating or drinking as this practice is now being looked into as a possible cause of the case outbreak in one sector.

"Please avoid sharing utensils. This would become part of our new normal practices including banning the use of a common shotglass in drinking sprees when we decide to lift the liquor ban again.  Please do not revert to this dangerous practice," he said.

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After embarking on an aggressive sectoral testing and increased case management for COVID-19, the city is again faced with the problem on the dwindling supply of Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain React Test (RT-PCR)test kits.

Mayor Magalong who since the start of the quarantine had worked out the procurement of the test kit donation and supplies, both swab and Rapid Diagnotics Test, said he might just have to try his luck again for more donations. Otherwise, the city will be forced to use its own funds this time.

City Health Services Officer Dr. Rowena Galpo said from the 40,000 kits procured by the mayor, the city is now down to 19,000 which is not much if the surge in cases continues.

The mayor said that for now the city will have to manage the remaining kits while he tries to obtain more.

But if the city decides to continue its risk-based mass testing to identify more carriers, then it may have to resort to a puchase, albeit it will have to wait for the cheapest lot to save on cost.

Still, purchasing test kits will not be sustainable because the city has to manage its resources amid the health crisis.

"We cannot go on testing forever especially since we know that this crisis might last until the end of 2021," the mayor said.

He said that faced with meager test kits, he might have to resort to zonal lockdown or quarantine system where in the event of clustering of cases, the entire barangay or purok will be declared as critical spot and will be put on a lockdown and residents on quarantine for 14 days.

"It's either we test them or quarantine them for two weeks," he said.

 Galpo said the city conducts an average of 462 RDT tests and 75 RDT per day at present.

As of August 4, it has undertaken a total of 33,970 PCR and RDT tests which the mayor said is already high when compared to the other cities and even regions.

However, one problem is that the test is only "good as the day a person was tested" because he remains vulnerable to the virus even after testing negative of it, the mayor added.