TABUK CITY, Kalinga – Some 1,263 persons under monitoring in this city were able to complete their prescribed 14-day home quarantine and were given a clean bill of health for them to be able to join their families during the prevalence of the extended Luzonwide enhanced community quarantine.
Mayor Darwin C. Estrañero disclosed that there are still 44 PUMs who are still completing their 14-day home quarantine and they are strictly being monitored by assigned personnel of the City Health Office to ensure that their condition will be stable under they complete the prescribed period of isolation.
On the other hand, 9 individuals who were categorized to be persons under investigation (PUIs) tested negative of the deadly Corona Virus Disease (COVID) 2019 based on their confirmatory test results from the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center (BGHMC).
Further, he added that the good news is that 33 PUIs were able to recover after completing their mandated quarantine period while there are only 4 remaining PUIs who are simply completing their home quarantine in their respective residences.
The local chief executive stated that the 4 PUIs have not been recommended to undergo the initial screening for COVID because of reported mild symptoms and that they were instead advised by health authorities to undergo the required home isolation to recover from the illness.
He ordered law enforcers and volunteers manning the different checkpoints around the city to strictly enforce the guidelines on the people that allowed to go in and out of the city so that there will be no untoward incidents that might happen that will ruin the gains of the efforts of concerned government agencies and the local government to maintain the city’s status as COVID-free.
According to him, Tabuk City and Kalinga were the first local governments in the country to implement the prescribed checkpoints in the city and the whole province when the issue on the COVID-19 was starting to escalate in the different parts of the world.
Aside from the installation of checkpoints around the city and the province and the conduct of thermal scanning of people on board vehicles and those who are walking on the streets, Kalinga also cancelled its major crowd drawing event, the Bodong festival and the celebration of the province’s silver anniversary, simultaneous with a similar activity in Apayao.
Mayor Estrañero pointed out that what the local government is afraid of is that the possibility that there might be individuals coming from outside the city who might be able to sneak into the city and contaminate people causing the spread of the virus that is why residents, whether or not from the city, should understand and internalize the efforts of the government to compel them to stay at home when they have nothing important to do outside their homes.
He underscored that the government is exerting extra effort to ensure that the people will be protected from the highly contagious virus and what is being requested from them is their cooperation to the crafted guidelines that were handed down by the inter-agency task force on the management of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases that will guarantee the success of the quarantine which is to reduce the opportunity of the virus to spread.
By Hent
