By Liezle Basa Inigo
DAGUPAN CITY — Before the transition from general community quarantine (GCQ) to modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) status on June 1, five of city government workers here tested positive for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
This was disclosed by the City Information Office Sunday, May 31, citing the first batch of laboratory results sent on Saturday, May 30, to the city government by the Philippine Red Cross (PRC).
Officials from the City Health Office (CHO) and Department of Health (DOH) have isolated the workers and begun conducting contact tracing.
The city government workers, who were all front-liners, were among those who were swabbed for specimens on May 27 when the city government began its risk-based COVID-19 testing.
Two of those who tested positive were from Barangay Carael, one from Barangay Pogo Grande, and another from Perez Boulevard. The fifth worker was from Barangay Tocok in San Fabian.
Dr. Ophelia Rivera, the city’s COVID-19 focal person, said all of them were asymptomatic.
Meanwhile, Mayor Brian Lim has appealed to the COVID-19 Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases that the city government be allowed to impose stricter measures to prevent the community transmission of the disease.
Lim requested the IATF that the city be retained under GCQ status, where movement of people would be more restricted.
The city government conducted its risk-based COVID-19 testing after it availed of PRC’s SARS-CoV-2 laboratory testing services through a memorandum of agreement.
Lim prioritized the testing of the city’s front-liners because they were “high risk” individuals, who may contract and spread the COVID-19 virus.
On Saturday May 30, some 728 city government front-liners, including members of the Dagupan City Philippine National Police (PNP), have been swabbed.