A HIGH-ranking Davao City health official said the city will intensify the monitoring of its borders, especially the southernmost part of the city, following reports of a discovery of a new strain of the Covid-19 in Sabah, East Malaysia.
Davao City Covid-19 focal person Dr. Ashley Lopez told SunStar Davao in a phone interview on Wednesday, December 30, this is in response to the recent directive of the national government to intensify its Covid-19 monitoring and response following the discovery of a new Sars-CoV-2 variant, which was first discovered in United Kingdom (UK) and is now spreading to 19 countries.
This had been the subject of the imposed travel ban, which took effect on 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, December 30, 2020.
Lopez said this was the subject of their meeting with the Davao City Covid-19 Task Force on Wednesday morning.
He added there is a need to implement screening measures for travelers coming from abroad who will be going to the city, through its backdoors, particularly in the southern part of its border.
"Amo naistoryahan labi na sa may south border kay naa man gud ta reported cases sa (We discussed that we should be stricter with border controls at the southern borders of the city because there are already reported cases in) Malaysia, particularly in Sabah, which is near in Sarangani and General Santos City in Region 12," Lopez told SunStar Davao in a phone interview.
The health official also said they already discussed the preparations and stringent measures to be made in terms of securing and screening people who will be traveling to the city either by land or sea coming from countries hit by the new Sars-CoV-2 strain, the virus that causes Covid-19. At present, the city has no direct international flights to countries that have reported the new strain.
Among the preparations, he said, is designating a separate Covid-19 quarantine facility for travelers coming from these areas.
But as of now, he said the city is still scouting for facilities to be designated for these travelers. Although he said they already have existing facilities, of which, they can designate as a special facility for travelers from abroad.
Lopez also said they are going to discuss with the Department of Health-Davao Region (DOH-Davao) on the possibility of having the "genomic testing" within the region. The genomic testing will be submitted to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) in Manila to determine if these travelers are carriers of the new Covid-19 strain.
Meanwhile, Lopez said if the new strain enters the country, it could double the cases.
"Based on studies, it can transmit 71-percent faster or at least [it has] two times the transmitting factor. Sa isa ka tao nga magpositive, two times maapektuhan. Pwede ma-double up ang cases, and there will be a surge of Covid-19 sa mutated strain (A single positive patient can infect more persons. Cases can double and would result in a surge of Covid-19 cases)," Lopez said.
Admittedly, he said the city has not yet devised concrete screening measures to determine whether these travelers are from the countries that have reported the new strain.
Despite this, Lopez said this is not something to panic over because there are still no concrete studies that show that the new strain is "deadlier" than the current Covid-19 strain.
But still, he said the public should continue to comply with the minimum health protocols and lessen unnecessary movement to curb the transmission of the virus.
He also said the City Government continues to expand its quarantine facility and testing center in anticipation of a possible surge of new cases next year.
Meanwhile, the Provincial Government of Sulu announced that it will place the entire province under lockdown from January 4 to 17, 2021 to prevent the spread of the new variant.
Sulu Government issued an executive order that would lock down the country's southernmost province.
In a report from The Straits Times of Malaysia, Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, Director-General of Malaysia's Ministry of Health, announced on December 23 that a new strain of Covid-19, tagged as A701B mutation, was found from samples taken in Sabah.
"It is similar to a strain found in South Africa, Australia, and the Netherlands," Abdullah was quoted in the report.