City hall scouting for contagion quarantine sites

MAYOR Moreno said he sent teams to scout for suitable sites that will house persons under monitoring (PUM)—who don’t display symptoms of COVID-19 nor have any respiratory illnesses but came from areas which have Covid-19 cases—and persons under investigation (PUI) who cannot afford home quarantine.

“Dili angay kabalakan kanang places of quarantine,” Moreno said as he explained that the city government housed some kids that arrived in Cagayan de Oro in one of the city’s houses.

“Health safety protocols set by the Department of Health were followed in placing these kids under quarantine. I heard reports that the nearby residents were trying to drive them out. I am asking people not to do this and, if there are people doing it I ordered the police to make arrests,” Moreno said in the dialect.

In setting up these quarantine units, Moreno insisted that they are not ‘exposing city residents to greater risk’ of being infected by Covid-19.  Acting City Health Officer Dr. Lorraine Nery echoed the mayor’s call, saying she will meet with the city’s barangay captains to conduct profiling of households.

“If these quarantine units are set up in your barangay ayaw kahadlok. These units are one way to contain our PUMs or PUIs so they would be safe and placed under observation where they are isolated from the community,” Dr. Nery said.

For his part, Regional Director Dr. Adriano Suba-an of the Department of Health-10 (DOH-10) said they already set up the Regional Inter-Agency Task Force and emergency operations center on the third floor of a restaurant in Cagayan de Oro City.

Hotlines for all local governments in northern Mindanao were also set up and teams were assigned to receive calls from these areas, Dr. Suba-an said. If necessary, teleconference meetings will be set up among all stakeholders.

“Have we reached a critical level? Not yet. Are we heading there? Maybe but we have a golden opportunity to prepare our barangays in protecting their constituents by keeping Covid-19 out of their communities,” Dr. Suba-an said.

“We have an overarching plan to eliminate COVID-19 but we have to operationalize it and secure an agreement from all stakeholders concerned,” Suba-an said. (Stephen Capillas of City Information Office)