BACOLOD City Mayor Evelio Leonardia has issued Executive Order (EO) No. 68, lifting the Sunday lockdown of the three major public markets–Central Market, Burgos Market and Libertad Market–in Bacolod City.
Leonardia, who signed the EO on October 15, said several modes of community quarantine have already been experienced by Bacolod City since the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic started. This impelled him to issue various executive orders to promote, apply, practice and implement strategies to mitigate, manage and contain the spread of coronavirus infections, among which was to lockdown the operation every Sunday of the three major public markets.
He said on October 10, a surveillance testing was conducted under the supervision of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) among the vendors of the three major pubic markets, achieving the purpose of determining the safety environment of the markets vis-à-vis the possible prevalence of Covid-19 threat and the identification of the health status of vendors.
“Considering the results of the surveillance testing at the three public markets, pursuant to Executive Order No. 59, that determined their safety environment for operations, the Sunday lockdown is considered as no longer presently imperative and may now be lifted. However, the periodic clean-up and disinfection of the said markets shall continue to be observed on Saturday or Sunday nights after these markets have closed for the day,” Leonardia said.
On October 10, a total of 1,665 market vendors underwent reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCT) tests at Burgos Public Market, Central Market and Libertad Market.
Of the 1,665 vendors tested, 25 yielded positive.
Executive Assistant Ernie Pineda, head of Bacolod Quick Response Team, earlier said those who tested positive were already extracted and transferred to the city’s quarantine facility.
He added the City Government also provided food assistance to the families of the 25 Covid-positive vendors.
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