BY GILBERT P. BAYORAN
With Covid-19 isolation facilities overwhelmed with occupants, classrooms will now be utilized as quarantine facilities, with Negros Occidental getting daily average active cases of 200 in the early days of May.
Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson advised local government units with quarantine facilities already congested with occupants, to make use of the classrooms in their areas.
Lacson said he will not request for a moratorium on inbound travel to Negros. Instead, LGUs with no vacancies in their quarantine facilities “will have to stop accepting travelers,” he said.
Since inbound travelers are required to go through the S-PaSS travel management system for travel coordination permits from the LGUs of destination, cities or towns in Negros Occidental with occupied quarantine qualities can deny them entry, Lacson added.
MORE CASES IN APRIL
Last month, Negros Occidental logged 4,000 active cases, with an average of 200 active infections per day this month, Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz said.
“This had never happened in the early stages, or first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic,” Diaz said.
He said the provincial government is opening 170 more rooms for Covid-19 positive patients at the EB Magalona Healing Center, to address the increasing number of active cases.
Diaz said they have already started deploying personnel of the provincial government to the Covid-19 healing center in EB Magalona to utilize the 170 rooms.
Zeaphard Gerhart Caelian, Provincial Incident Management Team head, said earlier that the 107-room capacity of the EB Magalona Healing Center was accommodating 170 patients.
Diaz said the 170 rooms will accommodate patients sent to them by LGUs with congested quarantine facilities.
The Provincial Incident Management Team records showed that the Silay Healing Center, that can accommodate 206 occupants, and the Mambukal Mountain Resort quarantine facility in Murcia town, that can accommodate 81 persons, are also almost full.
Diaz stressed the need to open schools for use as quarantine facilities, to address the lack of isolation facilities. Lacson also said that LGUs with Covid cases in triple digits should implement granular lockdowns.*
