NOW that Cagayan de Oro City and the rest of Northern Mindanao are classified as "Low Risk," which requires minimum health standards against Covid-19, it means that a lot of our kababayans can now go back to work and more establishments will be opening come May 16. That is if our good LGU will not request for a change of status.
The reason behind this classification -- low risk -- is mainly because of the low number of Covid-19 positive cases in the city and the region as a whole. The reported confirmed cases, however, should not be the only basis. Before jumping into such conclusion, our local health department should be aggressive in doing mass testing to determine the actual scenario in our city. But since we still do not have the needed testing facility, we simply rely solely on the data given during daily press conference. As medical experts reported, 80 percent of the infected patients shows no symptoms or asymptomatic. What does this mean for us? We may be in contact with someone who is carrying the deadly virus without us even knowing it. What made this situation worse is that there are reported deaths with coronavirus-like symptoms that were not tested. And once there are confirmed cases reported, the conduct of effective contact tracing had become more difficult to perform due to the time difference involved in the process.
We have heard time and time again from our local chief executives that we should also look into the effect of long-term community quarantine with our local economy. Surely, many businesses would take the hit if extended lockdown will be imposed especially those in small and medium scale enterprises (SMSE) and this will translate to massive unemployment. Now that the IATF has issued an updated classifications for every region, including highly urbanized cities under its Resolution No. 35, are we to expect that we can now gradually go back to the old normal? There are reports that our Mayor Oca will appeal, upon the concurrence of the city inter-agency task force, from IATF to reconsider its earlier recommendation and place the entire Cagayan de Oro City still under general community quarantine until the end of this month or perhaps until testing facility is made available in our city.
Clearly, we are in a big dilemma. Whatever final decision came out by May 15, we common folks must learn to adjust for our own good. As what Mayor Oca mentioned in one of his press statements, the solution to this pandemic does not entirely belong to the government. Each and every one of us must contribute to contain the spread of the virus in order for us to regain our previous lives again.