Mayor Benjamin Magalong on Aug. 3 recommended wearing of double face masks and reducing manpower capacity in workplaces amid the threat of the dreaded Delta variant.
“Wear double masks and reduce the number of workers by 50 percent at any given time by doing shifting, work-from-home or any other scheme that will work best for the establishment,” the mayor suggested.
He said these are necessary precautionary measures to protect the city’s workforce from the more virulent effects of the new variant.
Medical experts had warned that unlike the original Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) strain, the Delta variant has the capacity to infect a person in seconds and to linger more in the air. Its infectivity rate was even likened to that of chicken pox.
Positive patients are also said to become highly contagious in a shorter time and even if they are asymptomatic because the Delta can cause high amount of viral load.
Also unlike the original strain and most of the other variants, its initial symptoms are mild but once it gets into a person’s system, it can attack the organs with severity so that an infected person will instantly experience difficulty in breathing.
The mayor also urged government and private establishments to intensify implementation of the public and social health protocols like the observance of physical distancing among their employees and customers, regular disinfection, ensuring proper ventilation and avoiding crowding and lingering in confined spaces and eating in groups.
He said the city is also doing its best to expedite the vaccination of the workers by requesting for more vaccines for those belonging to the A4 category.
Sectoral vaccination sites had been set for working groups that experienced clustering of cases recently.