ILOILO City – The city government will be conducting free coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) tests for vendors and public transport drivers.
Markets and the public transport system are among the high-risk environments for COVID-19 infection, according to Mayor Jerry Treñas.
Thus, he ordered a random COVID-19 testing, which will cover public market vendors and public utility jeepney drivers as well as van and taxi drivers operating within the city’s seven districts.
The tests begin later this week and will run up to next week, according to city government COVID-19 Team spokesperson Jeck Conlu.
An estimated 10 to 20 percent of the total number of sidewalk and market vendors and drivers will be swabbed.
“Not all of them will be tested. There are thousands of them, it would be difficult,” said Conlu.
The city government also plans to hold another round of COVID tests to city hall employees who failed to participate in the three-day mass testing last month.
Chiqui Blancaflor, Iloilo City COVID Extraction Team head, said the swabbing will be conducted “floor by floor”.
For now, Blancaflor said, all uniformed personnel of the Bureau of Fire Protection, Philippine Coast Guard and Iloilo City Police Office are continuously being tested to make sure they are free from the viral disease.
As of Oct. 5, Blancaflor reported that the Iloilo City Health was able to collect a total of 32, 733 samples for reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction testing./PN
