By Dhel Nazario The Pasay City government has activated the health emergency response team in all of the city’s 201 barangays to swiftly monitor and report possible cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Mayor Emi Calixto-Rubiano revealed this during a meeting with mall, hotel, and restaurant owners, and inter-faith leaders as she separately discussed the city’s plan on the contagion. She said the emergency response teams are a vital cog in a city of about 500,000 people. “In a sense, we can say that they are our people in the trenches, battling an invisible enemy that could strike hard and fast in our very dense territory,” Calixto-Rubiano said. The Barangay Health Emergency Response Team (BHERT) is composed of an executive officer, a barangay kagawad who heads the barangay committee on health, and two barangay health workers, one of whom is preferably a nurse or midwife. They are instructed to just report possible COVID-19 cases in their barangays to the City Health Office which, in turn, would deploy epidemiology and surveillance units to take swab samples. The mayor then reminded businessmen to put up information and education materials in their respective establishments to let their customers know about the hazards of COVID-19 as well as steps to prevent the spread of the disease. “We need your cooperation in this endeavour. Information is our first line of defense against COVID-19,” she said. She also thanked the business establishments for helping the Pasay City government to disseminate its information education campaign (IEC) materials against COVID-19. Besides these, the mayor encouraged businessmen to put up screening equipment such as digital scanners with thermometers and place hand sanitizers in every entrance of their establishments, in addition to establishing an isolation room with proper ventilation.