DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 28 August) — The City Government of Davao will no longer impose hard lockdowns on establishments to control the transmission of infections in case another surge of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases will happen, an official of the Davao City Task Force on coronavirus disease (COVID-19) said.
Dr. Michelle Schlosser, spokesperson for the local task force in her program over DCDR 87.85 on Friday reiterated the importance of keeping the balance between safety and economy.
She added that during the administration of Mayor Sara Duterte, the implementation of a “zoning containment strategy” in offices and business establishments was stopped to help the local economy recover from the adverse impact of the pandemic.
Schlosser said that local health authorities believe COVID-19 cases could be managed even without resorting to hard measures.
“The reason behind this is that we are able to manage the cases even without the need for lockdowns because the establishments would suffer. Once placed under lockdown, operations will stop, and the company will suffer losses. That’s what we want to prevent,” she said.
She said the local government intends to balance health and economy by trying to contain the transmission of the virus without affecting the operations of the businesses.
She said the business process outsourcing companies (BPOs), banks, restaurants, schools, and other establishments have been trained to capacitate on what must be done in case an outbreak of COVID-19 cases happens within their jurisdiction.
“For several months, we’ve had several training sessions for them. We have trained them on how to do their own contact tracing, so that at their level they would know who will be quarantined and isolated. We have taught them that the companies or establishments will not suffer from the consequence of being closed down. They are very responsive and cooperative and because of this, we were able to contain workplace transmission,” she said.
She added the local government is closely monitoring the cases of COVID-19 in the city after the month-long Kadayawan festivities that drew a huge crowd.
In a press release, Schlosser reported 620 COVID-19 cases with a positivity rate of 13.8% as of August 21. Schlosser has yet to release the total number of cases in the city as of August 28. (Antonio L. Colina IV / MindaNews)
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