DOCTOR Rowena Galpo of the Baguio City Health Services Office (BCHSO) recommended surveillance in the barracks of police trainees daily to prevent future transmission of coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
“What we can improve is the daily monitoring like what is prescribed by the Department of Labor and Employment wherein workers are being monitored daily for the development of symptoms like having fever so that the moment they develop signs and symptoms, they will have to inform their superiors for them to be isolated and be tested or other management procedures,” Galpo said.
In the first week of October, a large number of police trainees undergoing their six-month field training program (FTP) in Baguio City have been infected with Covid -19.
“I don’t know if it is still practicable to have them tested before the training because if they are 500 that have to be tested, this might be costly so what we can do is to look for other alternatives that are cheaper for them to be tested,” said Galpo.
Galpo also suggested the strict monitoring of movements, adherence to the minimum health standards like the wearing of masks and physical distancing even when inside their barracks among other health management protocols.
Aside from the weakening of their immune system, Galpo said they are also looking at other reasons why the police trainees have contracted the virus.
“That could be a factor, the immunity of these trainees. Second is we should know if they are symptomatic so that we could have helped them earlier and do something about it. But we also have to consider their exposure to the environment which is where the virus starts and which have been transmitted in their barracks when they were all together,” Galpo explained.