Department of Health (DOH) personnel along with the staff of local government units (LGUs) will go house-to-house to look for individuals with symptoms of the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) especially in barangays with community transmission.
“We are not going to wait for the patient to go to us. This time, DOH plus the whole of government, whole of society will be engaged, so that we will be able to go to the patients, go to each house, check for symptoms, to check if there are people who have been exposed and to provide the necessary intervention.” DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire stated.
The health department will also strengthen contact tracing to identify the symptomatic patients. The close contacts will also be transferred to a quarantine facility to prevent further transmission. The symptomatic individuals will undergo RT-PCR tests. This protocol under the Coordinated Operations to Defeat Epidemic (CODE) will be done within 14 days during the Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine.
The DOH is currently creating a new omnibus guidelines for the use of different test kits and reiterated that observing the minimum health standards is a must.
While the Palace pointed out that the Rapid Antibody Test is not completely useless, the DOH discouraged the use of this kind of test to screen employees before going to work and has set this as one of its guidelines. The health department insisted that the RT-PCR is still the primary test kit used to diagnose COVID-19.
“Behavior change is important and at this point of our response, we encourage the public to join us in the fight against the pandemic. And the public’s role is to do or comply with the minimum health standards in their everyday lives.”
Report from Mark Fetalco
