Pasay City gets more contact tracers

Parañaque has deployed medical officers at Barangays Baclaran, Tambo, Vitalez and Merville, which have borders with Pasay City.

The Department of Health has deployed additional contact tracers and nurses to the isolation facilities and hospitals in Pasay City following the rising number of coronavirus infections.

Miko Llorca, Pasay City Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit (CESU) head, said the Pasay local government is preparing for the worst as the number of infections in the city continues to increase.

To assist the city in containing further transmission, the Philippine National Police also has deployed additional personnel to augment the local police in strictly implementing health protocols.

The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority is also putting up additional facilities to assist the city in its efforts.

Meanwhile, Parañaque City Mayor Edwin Olivarez has deployed medical officers to conduct health checks at the boundaries between the two cities.

Barangays Baclaran, Tambo, Vitalez and Merville have borders with Pasay City.

“We have border checks at our boundaries with Pasay,” Olivarez declared.

“We have coordinated with the barangay captains there, because as far as I now, they are organizing again quarantine passes because of the lockdown,” he added.

Pasay City earlier placed 56 of its 201 barangays under localized community quarantine with the surge of Covid cases.

As of 25 February, Pasay has 465 active cases, of which 50 to 60 percent were new cases living in the same household.

The CESU head said most of the infections were recorded in households.

“We observed based on our data that most of the transmission are occurring in the households or families,” Llorca said.

He added lapses in following health protocols may have caused the fast transmission of the virus.