Parañaque City to use calamity fund to buy COVID-19 testing kits

From news.mb.com.ph by Jean Fernando

The Parañaque City government announced that the city council, through a resolution, has approved the use of their emergency calamity fund to purchase testing kits for the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID 19).
Parañaque City Public Information Office (PIO) Chief Mar Jimenez said each local government unit was given only two testing kits, but because of the increasing number of persons infected with the disease, the city government must be ready to test more suspected cases.

Roaming in malls

When asked about the suspension of classes, Jimenez said prior to the announcement of President Duterte on the matter, Mayor Edwin Olivarez decided not to suspend the classes in the city for fear that students will only roam around in malls and thus be more susceptible to the disease.

“It would be better that students were only inside their schools, but now the President decided to suspend classes in the whole Metro Manila from March 10 to 14, the only thing we could do is to deploy policemen and the barangay (staff) around the city to check whether there are students roaming around especially inside the malls,” Jimenez said.

Per a directive of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), personnel of local government units (LGUs) were told to ask policemen and barangay watchmen to conduct checks on whether students were roaming around in malls.

Jimenez also said the disinfection of schools in the city was already being done every Friday night when there are no classes because the effects of the disinfectant last 24 hours.

Couple positive for COVID-19

On the couple who are San Juan residents and who tested positive for the disease, they opted to be confined at the Unihealth Paranaque Hospital and Medical Center because their child works there.

In confirming the report, Mayor Olivarez said the pair was transferred last Monday to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine in Muntinlupa.

Olivarez also said they will disinfect the areas visited by the couple before they were confined.

Don’t hide information

The city chief executive added that he also met with operators of mostly Chinese-run gambling hubs in his city on Monday and urged them to refrain from hiding information on COVID-19 cases.

“Ganoon po ang briefing natin sa kanila… dapat po iyong mga data ay hindi wini-withhold, lalong-lalo na kahit private iyan,” Olivarez said.  (That’s how we briefed them: data on the disease should not be withheld, even if it’s private.)

The mayor said he also released a memorandum discouraging crowd-drawing activities, and commercial establishments in the city were urged to check the temperature of customers at entrances.