Workers from the susceptible sectors subject themselves to COVID-19 testing offered for free under the Aggressive Community Testing (ACT) program of the city government and the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA)-John Hay Management Corp.
The three-day activity slated April 15-17 at the Melvin Jones targets 3,000 persons or 1,000 per day on a first-come-first-served basis.
Mayor Benjamin Magalong, an advocate of expanded or targeted testing, said aggressive testing should be sustained hand in hand with the other infection control and case management systems established in the city like contact tracing, quarantine and isolation, treatment and prevention to prevent the city’s COVID-19 situation from getting out of hand.
“Although testing will cause the number of our cases to balloon, we will be able to determine where the infections are coming from and know the situation on the ground. And because we know our true situation, we will also know how to address the it, manage the cases and prevent more transmissions,” he said.
City Health Services Officer Dr. Rowena Galpo said they project a 10 percent positivity rate during the activity or around 300 new cases which can further increase after contact tracing.
She said the city is preparing for these additional cases by increasing the bed capacity of the city’s isolation facilities.
The city is also working out means to help public and private hospitals expand their capacities.
The ACT activity is the latest of the several rounds conducted in the city through the help of the BCDA-JHMC.
This time, the targeted sectors include the construction workers, call center agents/business process outsourcing, food handlers, grocery store workers, bank employees, security guards, uniformed personnel, employees of regional line agencies and city government employees.
Yesterday the city recorded additional 84 new cases of COVID-19 bringing the total number of infections to 9, 057 with 1, 483 active cases recovering from government and private health facilities.
The local government is currently working double time to increase the bed capacities of the city’s isolation units to address surge in cases to accommodate more asymptomatic, mild and moderate COVID-19 cases. (Joseph Manzano, RPN DZBS Baguio OIC | Aileen P. Refuerzo, photo courtesy of PIO Baguio)
