BAGUIO CITY – The city government stepped up the monitoring aspect of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) mitigation through a heightened surveillance of the entry of persons with travel history to countries covered by the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) travel ban in its 128 barangays.
Mayor Benjamin Magalong Feb. 11 issued a memorandum requiring barangays to regularly survey and report residents and visitors, both Filipinos and foreigners, in their areas of jurisdiction with travel histories to COVID-19-critical countries like China, Hongkong and Macau from December 2019 to the present.
The survey should include members of the households and other persons the subject individuals came in contact with to facilitate contact tracing should it be needed.
Apart from this, barangay officials were asked to regularly monitor the health conditions of the identified persons in case they develop symptoms related to COVID-19 and to immediately report the same to the nearest health facility.
The reports should be submitted to the City Mayor’s Office in behalf of the Interagency Task Force chaired by Mayor Magalong with a copy furnished the Health Services Office.
As of Feb. 14, the Department of Health Center for Health and Development under Officer-in-Charge Regional Director Dr. Amelita Pangilinan said the region remains virus-free as no positive case has been recorded.
However, there are 10 persons under investigation (PUIs) in the region, four of whom are new while six were carried over from the previous figure.
Of the four new PUIS, two are from Baguio City and one each from Benguet and Abra.
Previous PUIs listed tested negative for the virus, according to the DOH-CAR.
The mayor recently ordered the activation of the Barangay Health Emergency Response Teams (BHERTs) tasked to keep a list of persons with history of travel and to enforce a 14-day home confinement period for persons arriving from the COVID-19 affected areas, in coordination with the Department of Health; extend assistance and support to persons undergoing home confinement, provide assistance in the transport of suspected carriers to hospitals, conduct regular barangay-wide clean-up campaigns and provide needed information.** Aileen P. Refuerzo
