BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental, Philippines – The CoViD situation in Bacolod is now reaching the critical levels, and unless the situation is addressed, the problem will be blown up in two weeks.
This was the warning of Dr. Jeanette Umali as she and fellow doctors of the Philippine Society of Microbiology and Infectious Disease appealed to the general public to do their share in driving down the numbers. Umali and other doctors had an online press conference to address what one of them calls as the “escalating” cases of COVID in the city.
Dr. Rommela Tiples-Ruiz, meanwhile said the “escalating” cases of COVID means the city’s measures to drive the numbers down are “not effective”.
“This is not a joke,” Tiples-Ruiz said, adding that putting it has gone to the point that the areas in various series of quarantines or lockdowns has become pointless unless the people themselves are not following protocols, as people in the city are still acting as though the virus is already gone.
People are going out to restaurants, going to malls, not wearing masks and generally not observing health protocols, she said.
Tiples-Ruiz added that the medical community is “not trying to scare people”.
But, the doctors added, it is too late now to point fingers at each other.
“This cannot be done by the local government alone,” they said, “ rather [the worsening situation] can be resolved through community effort,” they added.
Dr. Erika Caperonce, meanwhile, urged the public to isolate themselves at the first signs of CoViD infection.
“People with symptoms should isolate themselves at home in their own room early even before they get tested or assessed medically [and] not go to work,” she said.
Workplace policy should also include not letting people go to work at the first signs of infection.
GO TO LEGIT SOURCES ONLY
Dr. Roberto Guanzon, Jr. meanwhile, urged the population to trust “only credible sites” like the World Health Organization, and the Department of Health, among others, as well as trusting credible persons like doctors, nurses and vaccinologists.
We should also stop sharing fake news, he said, because doing so “will fuel vaccine hesitancy and vaccine hesitancy will lead to decrease vaccine uptake”.
