By Minerva Newman TAGBILARAN CITY – Bohol Governor Arthur Yap invoked the advice coming from his medical advisers when he signed Executive Order No. 22, extending the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in the province until April 30, and the implementation of other calibrated preventive measures against the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Former Department of Agriculture (DA) Secretary and Bohol Governor Arthur Yap (MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO) “The risk of just one virus carrier entering the province is very high,” Yap said. He cited the daily reports from the Department of Health in Region 7 (DOH-7), which said that there were additional COVID-19 positive cases in Cebu City, as of April 11, and national figures were already at 4,428 cases already. Yap signed EO-22 at the Capitol lobby in the presence of Bohol Representatives Edgar Chatto, Aris Aumentado and Kristine Alexie Tutor; some members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP), Dauis Mayor Marietta Sumaylo who heads the mayors' league and the media. The highly-contagious nature of COVID-19 has been well documented, and a single infected individual's capacity could start an epidemic, Yap said, quoting a position paper from the province’s Medical Technical Team (MDT). According to Yap, the MDT cited several issues that helped him make the decisions to protect the Boholanos from the pandemic: · Multiple persons with infection entering will exponentially increase the transmission of the disease to a point that our preparations will be inadequate to care for the sick. The death toll from such a surge will be significant. · It will give the concerned agencies time to prepare for the entry of people from potentially risky provinces and cities. These preparations will include quarantine centers where people who enter Bohol can be housed and properly monitored while they are isolated from the general population for 14 days. · We must be ready to protect our most vulnerable population in the event of a local outbreak. For this we must also plan properly and make do preparations · Currently, our number of personal protective equipment (PPE) is inadequate to protect all our health workers in the event of a surge of cases. · Our intensive care equipment such as ventilators are not enough to handle an increase in severe cases should the influx be too sudden. · It is an accepted fact that COVID-19 will likely find its way to our shores and will come to spread in the population, but time spent on preparedness will keep our healthcare system from buckling under the burden of full-blown epidemic. · An extension of the community quarantine will, hopefully, allow for mass testing to be more available. With mass testing, we hope to be able to isolate COVID-19 cases more efficiently while allowing the rest of the society to slowly go back to normal activities. · We also hope that more viable treatment options will be discovered by then. This will allow us to tackle the severe cases easier and decrease the potential mortality rate. “As physicians, doctors we are holding on to hope as long as we could, and we cannot allow the deliberate entry of the pathogen while we can help it,” the medical team said. But if it should come, the team said we must be ready as much as possible in order to limit its health-related impact on our society and prevent the loss of lives. Among the members of the MDT were Cesar Tomas Lopez, Bong Lechago, Jeff Ong, Ellan Salarda and Em-em Uy. They also serve in the 1Bohol COVID-19 Awareness Cluster. Yap said a more aggressive prevention was necessary, noting that even the supply of personal protective gears for health workers, and ventilators now seems facing global shortage. In the prevailing abnormal emergency and crisis, the governor said Bohol must hold on to its defense.