By Dolly Yasa
BACOLOD City – Mayor Evelio Leonardia on Saturday called on Bacolodnons to be “up in arms” against the coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19.
Leonardia issued the call during the celebration of the 123rd Philippine Independence Day held at the Bacolod public plaza.
He said the situation is alarming “as we are now in the high-risk category, putting our healthcare system in jeopardy.”
“Let me appeal and awaken in each of you that innate heroism and the instinct to survive in order to attain that freedom of well-being. We cannot remain passive or just be an observer. Let us all be up in arms and how? We can do it by simply observing the health protocols demanded from each of us.”
Leonardia said “we have already devised and implemented measures and steps to contain or mitigate its effects.”
“In fact, since it started to gnaw on the health of our people sometime March last year, we were able to achieve in the last quarter of that year a one-figure statistic, that is from hundreds of positive patients we went down to five, 4, or even 2 patients and the trend continued up to the first quarter of this year.”
He cited that in the last quarter of 2020 and up to the first quarter this year, “we were happy with the one-figure statistic on the reported COVID cases and even our quarantine status was downgraded by the NIATF or the National Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.”
Our Emergency Operations Center was even used as a benchmark by other local government units from as far as Mindanao, he also said.
He lamented that in the opening months of this year, it looked as if a lot of the population already forgot the strict health protocols imposed and seemed to enjoy a new kind of freedom after months of lockdowns.
“We again started to have three-figure statistics of COVID-positive and this recent spike and rebound of the virus is already a cause for alarm as our hospitals are challenged to cope with the surge of patients.”
The quarantine facilities are also closely watched.
On Saturday, the Department of Health reported 236 new cases in this city. The city also has 1,890 active cases.
Meanwhile, the Emergency Operations Center report said that a Bacolod resident, who tested positive for COVID-19, infected 90 percent of their household members.
The EOC-TF advised the public to seek medical consultation and undergo swab tests upon the onset of symptoms to prevent further household transmission.
Moreover, the public is encouraged to seek medical consultation for flu-like symptoms and undergo swab tests at the Bacolod Respiratory Outpatient (BRO) Center, located in front of the Bacolod City Public Plaza.
The BRO Center offers free consultation and swab tests to those who have COVID-19 symptoms.
