Balancing Baguio’s economy and Covid-19 regulations

EDITORIAL

BAGUIO Tourism city chief Aloysius Mapalo said the OCTA research about the OCTA research on high Covid-19 rates in the summer capital was generally accurate but some factors were not mentioned.
    “OCTA data were taken during the first half of November, when Baguio was doing aggressive targeted testing of contacts. So expectedly, spike in cases were discovered in the clustered outbreak areas and therefore, a high attack rate. What was not explained, is that if the testing were random, the attack rate may be low.
    “The report does not include or even mention the mitigation and control management strategies employed by our local government and health officials, including the immediate strict isolation and quarantine measures of positive cases. This should have been the more important narrative.
    According to Mapalo, OCTA data “did not include more recent numbers of cases, particularly starting Nov 14, that is now declining due to the effective response on the discovered clustered outbreaks. If those will now be considered, our attack rate for the period week of Nov 14 to 20, is only 4.05% - below the risk threshold of 5%.
    “Now, what is more risky? ...in a place where cases are identified and controlled, or in a place where you don’t even know if the person beside you is positive (because they are not even testing)? I think the people know… we are now experiencing a surge in travel requests for this coming long weekend and towards December from tourists. Don’t worry, all of them are required to be Covid negative,” Mapalo said.
    Granted no one outside Baguio who comes in as a tourist is not infected with Covid-19, can we also guarantee their safety if they will not be infected in Baguio and bring the virus out to the lowlands?
    Baguio’s economy needs to be stabilized, but then, it is a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea. It seems, the city had become an experiment in controlling the deadly pandemic and balancing it with economic factors like opening the night market and welcoming tourists while restricting Benguet folks from coming in. This generated controversy between Baguio and Benguet officials and the story could be read at the front page of this newspaper.