BACOLOD City – Citing the rapid increase in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases here, concerned physicians urged President Rodrigo Duterte and the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID) to place the city once more under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) for two weeks.
Iloilo City’s Mayor Jerry Treñas, on the other hand, announced last night he was closing his city’s sea borders with Bacolod City beginning today, July 27, to further protect his constituents from COVID-19.
“We are now the highest in Western Visayas, and there are hundreds of pending results coming in. Some hospitals have declared full COVID-19 capacity. Numerous healthcare workers and frontliners have been admitted or home-quarantined,” according to Dr. Ma. Ivy Malata, president of the Philippine Medical Association – Canlaon Medical Society.
Malata was referring to cases of local transmission. As of July 25, Bacolod City recorded 78 COVID-19 cases.
The city also has 70 COVID-19-positive locally stranded individuals (LSIs) and repatriated overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
“We would like to appeal to the national IATF for an ECQ for at least two weeks to help us contain the virus, to help the healthcare system recuperate, and to give us time to institute and implement appropriate interventions, especially with the way LSIs and OFWs are being handled,” Malata stressed in a letter to the President.
Negros Occidental Medical Society president Dr. Robert Puerta made a similar call during a virtual consultation with city government officials.
Doctors know “the limitations of our healthcare system,” said Malata.
ILOILO SHUTS SEA BORDER WITH BACOLOD
Last night, Mayor Treñas of neighboring Iloilo City announced he was closing his city’s sea borders with Bacolod City.
No passenger ships from Bacolod City would be allowed to dock in Iloilo City’s seaports beginning today.
“Travel between Iloilo City and Bacolod City for all persons will be temporarily suspended starting subject to the meeting of the (regional COVID task force) tomorrow. (However) movement of goods and shipment of cargo shall remain unhampered,” announced Treñas.
The mayor said the duration of the suspension of sea travel between the two cities would depend on the outcome of the task force’s meeting.
Prior to announcing the suspension of sea travel, Treñas held a consultative meeting with Office of Civil Defense regional director Jose Roberto Nuñez and Department of Interior and Local Government regional director Juan Jovian Ingeniero. They discussed the COVID-19 situation in Bacolod City and Negros Occidental.
In the whole Western Visayas as of July 25, the province Negros Occidental where Bacolod City is located has the most number of COVID-19 cases – 394 (38 local transmissions plus 356 LSIs and OFWs).
‘NOT EQUIPPED’
“We are not equipped for a full-blast COVID war, Mr. President. We only have a few hospitals, with limited capacity and equipment. We are just a few steps from being the next epicenter, and we fervently hope you can help us prevent that from happening,” according to Dr. Malata.
She also informed the President about some of the things doctors brought to the attention of the local government of Bacolod City to consider. These were the following:
* extensive contact tracing; strengthening of the role of BHERTs (Barangay Health Emergency Response Teams)in overseeing and monitoring patients that should be home-quarantined
* unified protocols for all healthcare facilities
* for returning LSIs and OFWs – improve implementation of protocols, especially the coordination between local governments to allow time for the receiving local government to make arrangements for incoming LSIs; increase the number of quarantine facilities as well as step-down facilities for recovering COVID patients
* reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction testing of individuals working in seaports and airports, especially those with symptoms; they should submit themselves to mandatory quarantine until results are available
* a task force should be deployed to ensure proper wearing of masks, implementation of physical distancing, and the minimum medical requirements for the new normal; police visibility is necessary
* data pooling of all COVID-19 patients for possible convalescent plasma intervention
* strong and consistent implementation of rules and standards for the new normal set by the local government, including curfews, resumption of the liquor ban, prohibition on social gatherings, with corresponding fines for violators
* digital COVID-19 surveillance system, with the use of QR codes upon entry to any establishment to determine persons who are supposedly on quarantine
“We believe this is the best way by which we can halt or at least slow down the spread of local transmission, and at the same time fix the loopholes that we have in our system that have led to the situation we are experiencing now,” according to Malata.
She added: “We are both tired and afraid, yet we will continue to work and serve our people the best way that we can during this turmoil.”/PN
