LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – The municipal government appealed to residents in the municipality to be open-minded in the conduct of the free aggressive community testing and the roll out of the government’s vaccination program because it is for the overall health and safety of everyone.
Mayor Romeo K. Salda disclosed that it is unfortunate that there are some individuals who are continuously trying to spread false information about the conduct of the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test which is now causing confusion among the people that resulted in the very poor outcome of the results of the recent aggressive community testing spearheaded by the State-owned Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) in the locality.
For example, Salda claimed that one of the misinformation being circulated by irresponsible individuals is that if a person does not have the required Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) number, the result of the sab test that will be conducted on them will be automatically negative but when a person has a PhilHealth number, the result of the test will most probably be positive.
Further, he stated that there are also individuals who had been texting their family members, friends and relatives and informing them that the conduct of the swab test is painful to the nose that is why there are many people who were previously interested to be tested backed out of the aggressive community testing.
Mayor Salda pointed out that such misinformation being done by irresponsible individuals will not actually help in the ongoing efforts of concerned government agencies and the local government to prevent further surges in the number of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases in the municipality bit it will instead in the worsening of the situation which the government does not want to happen in the first place because it will be the people that will eventually suffer the consequences of much stricter community quarantine status for the municipality and the province as a whole.
According to him, local officials and health workers are doing their best to provide the people with the right information on the conduct of testing and vaccination to help in achieving the desired herd immunity of the populace but it seems that there are some individuals who want to discredit such efforts for whatever purpose.
The mayor called on residents not to believe the misinformation being circulated by some individuals and for them to instead verify the same from the concerned government agencies and the municipal government so that they will be guided in whatever decision that they will make as what is important at this point is for the people to be spared from contracting the deadly virus.
Salda explained that it will not be the individuals circulating such false information on the conduct of testing and vaccination that will be affected once there will be a surge in the number of COVID cases as it will be the concerned government agencies and the municipal government that will suffer the consequences of the health care system being compromised and the frontliners being stressed out. By HENT