Cebu’s 3-day mass coronavirus testing starts with 300 vendors in city’s biggest market

CEBU CITY—Nearly 300 vendors in the city’s biggest market had been tested for SARS Cov2, the virus that causes COVID-19, on Wednesday (Sept. 30), the start of a three-day mass testing program of the city government.

Mayor Edgardo Labella said vendors who would test positive for the virus would be required to go on quarantine for 14 days.

Results of the tests would be known in two days.

Labella sought to assure the public and businesses that Carbon Market, the city’s biggest, would not be shut down in the process of testing its vendors.

The mayor said only a portion of the market, where a vendor who tested positive for the virus had a stall, would be closed.

“It will be like a granular lockdown,” Labella said. “Only affected stalls and those around it will be closed. We will not close the entire public market,” he said.

According to reports cited by local authorities, most of those infected had been to the market.

In a previous interview, retired general Melquiades Feliciano, deputy chief enforcer of Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases in the Visayas (IATF), said testing was part of the government’s strategy to contain the spread of the virus in areas with a high rate of infection.

“We now know where the virus is so we will identify the extent of the infection, isolate them and provide necessary health interventions,” he said.

Dr. Michelle Linsalata, Cebu City Health Department (CCHD) assistant head, said the city government was expected to spend at least P4 million on test kits for vendors at the Carbon Public Market.

“It is important that we do this right away,” said Linsalata.

“We are hoping vendors who test positive will be isolated because if not, that will be the source of another infection,” she said.

Edited by TSB