DAVAO CITY, Philippines – The City Government has established a center for arriving locally stranded individuals and overseas workers to stay to wait for 15 hours to wait for their coronavirus (Covid-19) test results.
Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio in her program in Davao City Disaster Radio on Wednesday revealed this “Test and Wait” procedure is now implemented since July 14. Passengers will undergo a reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test and will stay in a holding room for a maximum of 15 hours.
Individuals who test negative on the results will be allowed to go to their homes but must undergo strict 14-day home quarantine. Those who test positive may be sent to the city’s quarantine centers.
Data from the City Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit of the City Health Office showed that from July 5-13, 2020, 42 cases of infection came from people who traveled from Manila or 37%, while 32% is from local transmission from a person with Covid-19.
Other histories of exposure are due to community unknown exposure (16%), community exposure (6%), exposed to suspect COVID-19 case (4%), travel from Cebu (1%), travel from Clark (1%), OFW (1%), travel from abroad (1%) and health care facility exposure (1%).
Mayor Duterte said this “Test and Wait” system was decided on to lessen the burden of doing contact tracing in communities.
“We needed a change in the game plan (because of the burden of doing contact tracing of people arriving in the city and later tested positive in the RT-PCR test),” she said.
Davao City has seen Covid-19 cases rising up to 613 based on the Department of Health Davao Region’s report on July 15, which include 373 recoveries and 32 deaths. (davaotoday.com)
