DAVAO CITY – The city government will no longer resort to putting establishments under lockdown to control the transmission of infections in the event of another Covid-19 surge, an official of the Davao City Task Force on Covid-19 said.
Dr. Michelle Schlosser, task force spokesperson, reiterated the importance of keeping the balance between safety and economy.
She added that the administration of former Mayor now Vice President Sara Duterte abandoned the implementation of a “zoning containment strategy” at offices and business establishments to help the local economy recover from the adverse impact of the pandemic.
Local health authorities believed Covid-19 cases could be managed even without resorting to hard measures to put the spread under control, she said.
“The reason behind this is that we are able to manage the cases even without the need for lockdowns because the establishments would suffer. Once placed under lockdown, operation will stop, and the company will suffer the losses. That’s what we want to prevent,” she said.
Schlosser said the city government intends to balance health and economy by trying to contain the transmission of the virus without affecting the operations of the businesses.
She said business process outsourcing companies (BPOs), banks, restaurants, schools, and other establishments have been trained to capacitate on what must be done in case a Covid-19 outbreak happens within their jurisdiction.
“For several months, we’ve had several training sessions for them. We have trained them on how to do their own contact tracing, so that at their level they would know who will be quarantined and isolated. We have taught them that the companies or establishments will not suffer from the consequence of being closed down. They are very responsive and cooperative and because of this, we were able to contain workplace transmission,” she said.
She added that the city government is closely monitoring the cases of Covid-19 in the city after the month-long Kadayawan festivities that drew a huge crowd.