All precautionary measures are being implemented by local government units in Negros Occidental, including possible preventive lock down, to thwart the spread of COVID- 19 disease in their areas.
San Carlos City Mayor Renato Gustilo yesterday said that they are entertaining the possibility of having a preventive lock down, by setting up checkpoints in all its entry and exit points, to get the body temperature of people coming in and out.
But Gustilo said that the economic activity will remain unhampered.
He also said that doctors being employed by the city government of San Carlos, have been instructed to be available 24-hours a day, although they have no Person Under Investigation (PUI) for the dreaded disease.
While it is business as usual in tourist destinations of San Carlos City, including in Sipaway island, Gustilo said he is issuing an executive order banning crowd-drawing activities.
Mayor Marvin Malacon also suspended the operations of the crowd-drawing mangrove-eco trail in Brgy. Tomongtong, EB Magalona, and also ordered the indefinite suspension of fiestas, trainings and seminars, school and sports activities, until the situation is declared stable and under control by concerned government agencies.
Classes in all levels effective today will be suspended, Malacon added.
The Suyac Mangrove Eco Park, a tourist destination in Sagay City, will be closed for entry effective today, an advisory of the Sagay City Tourism Office said.
As to the case of Lacawon island, also a tourist destination in Cadiz City, Mayor Salvador Escalante said yesterday that it still business as usual.
But Escalante said he had put up a checkpoint, being manned by medical health personnel and barangay officialstanods, as part of their precautionary measures, noting that the island resorts has several guests, who are foreigners.
Cadiz City has two PUIs and 77 PUMs (Persons Under Monitoring), mostly coming from Manila, which is now under “community quarantine”, according to Escalante.
The city governments of Sagay and Cadiz also engaged in massive sanitation and disinfection, of their government offices, public markets, and bus terminals, among others, in their respective areas
Sagay City has one PUI, who came from Manila, and 69 PUMs will undergo a 14-day home quarantine, in compliance with the order of the Department of Health, Mayor Alfredo Marañon III said.
The PUI was immediately brought to a government hospital in Bacolod City, after his arrival at the Bacolod-Silay airport.
The Silay City government, through its City Health Office, urged its residents to limit their movements within the city, and to distance themselves from people with history of travel from areas with reported local transmission.
Policemen have also been deployed in the entry and exit points of Bago City, to assist the City Health Office personnel, in the conduct of thermal scanning to passengers coming in and out, of the city.
Mayor Francis Frederick Palanca also issued three executive orders implementing the mandatory disinfection, sanitation and general cleaning of local government offices and spaces in Victorias, indefinite suspension of social gatherings, including graduation rites and related ceremonies.
While Victorias City has 63 PUMs, it strongly debunked claims that there was a person reported as COVID 19 positive. There is no truth to reports that the Kaayong Lawas infirmary had been closed, stressing that it is a Standard Operating Procedure to disinfect the medical facility, after a patient suffering from flu was transferred to a hospital in Bacolod City.
Due to the outbreak of COVID 19, Toboso Vice-Mayor Jesse Rex Bartolome, the town councilors, who attended the PCL national convention in Manila last month, have been advised to undergo “self-quarantine”.
Regular sessions of the Sangguniang Bayan on March 17 and 24 have been suspended, Bartolome said, in the memorandum he issued.*
BY GILBERT P. BAYORAN
Discussion about this post