CDO enforces house-to-house survey to track possible COVID-19 carriers

MANILA, Philippines — The city government of Cagayan Oro has started conducting a “house-to-house survey” to trace and immediately isolate possible COVID-19 carriers.

Since April 3, the City Health Office (CHO) has so far checked over 3,000 of the city’s 160,000 households. Of the number, they tracked 53 people with flu-like symptoms and respiratory illnesses.

Further investigation will be done to check their respective travel histories or possible contacts with COVID-19 positive persons to determine whether these residents will be declared Persons Under Investigation (PUI) or Persons Under Monitoring (PUM) for the disease.

“While the house-to-house survey could lead to an increase in the number of PUIs and PUMs, we’re doing it precisely to trace and isolate possible carriers of the deadly virus,” Mayor Oscar Moreno said in a statement Monday.

The campaign is part of the city’s beefed-up measures against the infectious respiratory disease, which has infected 3,660 people nationwide, 163 of whom have died while 73 recovered.

Cagayan de Oro City has been placed under a city-wide quarantine and a daily 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. curfew was imposed to prevent the further spread of COVID-19.

Based on the Department of Health (DOH) data, Cagayan de Oro City has only one confirmed COVID-19 positive case, a 71-year-old male who came from Greenhills, San Juan. He was admitted to the Northern Mindanao Medical Center and was considered recovered after subsequent tests turned negative.

Despite the significant drop in the number of PUMs in the city, Moreno said he doesn’t want to be complacent.

The mayor said he is closely monitoring the situation and will defer to the opinion of the DOH and the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases in imposing an enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).

“I’m not ignoring calls by some sectors for an ECQ. As I said, it’s important to seek guidance from the IATF and DOH. We closely monitor and study the situation daily. We’re not complacent and we’re preparing for the worst-case scenario,” he said.

Moreno said that while community quarantine is in effect, the distribution of food packs continues.

“We’re targeting to deliver food packs to the doorsteps of over 100,000 households. For our city’s COVID response, we have allocated P550-million,” he said.

About half of the country’s population were ordered to stay home, mass gatherings were banned and public transportations were suspended as the main island of Luzon was put on community quarantine amid the COVID-19 crisis.

This drastic measure is targeted to arrest the spread of the new coronavirus but has effectively halted business and commerce in Luzon.