Barangay officials and members of the barangay health emergency response teams (BHERTs) are being requested to conduct dialogue and consultations with the residents in potential outbreak areas of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in their barangays to help in informing and educating their constituents on the basic health protocols to control the spread of the virus.
In a recent meeting with members of the Liga ng mga Barangay, Mayor Benjamin B. Magalong urged punong barangays to visit the city’s operations center to be appraised by the data analysts on the identified potential outbreak areas in their barangays for them to be able to immediately inform their constituents to prevent the outbreak of the virus.
He stated that the geographic information system-based analysis being used by the city’s operation center can ascertain the potential outbreak areas in the different barangays thus it is best for the barangay officials to be aware of their own situation and engage their constituents by informing them to comply with the basic health protocols to prevent the increase in COVID cases citywide.
According to him, the transmission of the deadly virus has now shifted to the households thus it is important for the barangay officials and BHERTs members to intensify their grassroots information and education campaign to remind them to sustain their observance of the basic health protocols, a strategy that will help prevent the spread of the virus.
The mayor disclosed the city government will produce some 3,000 tarpaulins and more than 60,000 flyers for distribution to the different barangays as part of the city’s information and education campaign to provide the residents with sufficient knowledge on how to combat the spread of the deadly virus.
He disclosed that because of the city’s aggressive contact tracing and expanded testing efforts, the clustering of COVID cases were identified in some of the barangays, particularly MRR Queen of Peace during the early stages of the local transmission, Slaughterhouse Compound, Lower Lourdes Subdivision, among others, but more efforts still have to be exerted to control the local transmission in the households.
He proposed that the dialogues and consultations by the barangay officials and the BHERTs members in the identified potential outbreak areas will have to be done to inculcate the resident’s compliance to the basic protocols to avert the possibility of an outbreak of COVID cases.
He recognized the important role of the barangay officials in cascading to their constituents the right information on how to combat the spread of the deadly virus in their respective areas of jurisdiction for their constituents to be fully aware that it is necessary for them to adhere to the basic health protocols to prevent them from being exposed to the said illness. By Dexter A. See
