A temporary treatment and monitoring facility that will accommodate more coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients in Marikina City is expected to be completed by the end of this month.
Mayor Marcelino Teodoro said Monday (Aug. 10) that a 136-bed capacity facility is currently being constructed in Barangay Nangka.
“A one-hectare property was developed for the construction of the temporary treatment and monitoring facility,” Teodoro said, noting that the facility is expected to be operational by the end of August.
“In order for the facility to be built fast, we used container vans and they are equipped with air conditioners and individual shower rooms,” he added.
Teodoro said earlier that they are intensifying their contact tracing efforts to quickly contain those exposed to patients infected with COVID-19.
“One innovation that we currently have here in Marikina is that we have improved our contact tracing,” he said, adding that their contact tracers can currently trace up to 30 identified close contacts from one infected patient.
“And because our ratio is high, we can quickly contain the spread of the virus,” he added.
Teodoro said each of the city's 16 barangays has a team of contact tracers composed of members of the City Epidemiological Surveillance Unit (CESU), barangay personnel, and the local police.
"We will continue to conduct contact tracing hanggang mag-zero ang number of cases natin dito sa Marikina (until the number of our cases in Marikina zero out)," he said.