“ALL the Covid-19 patients in Bacolod City are now cooperating with the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) task force extraction team to transfer to the city’s quarantine facility.”
This was stressed by Executive Assistant Ernesto Pineda, head of EOC task force extraction on Monday, July 12, 2021, after they transferred all the Covid-19 patients to the city’s quarantine facility.
Pineda admitted that in previous months, they were facing difficulty in extracting Covid-19 patients from their homes.
“So far since last week, we already transferred all the Covid-19 patients to the city’s quarantine facility and for now, we don’t have a backlog,” Pineda said.
He said the severe Covid-19 cases were brought to hospitals while mild and asymptomatic cases were brought to quarantine facilities to finish the 14-day isolation.
“We are extracting them to isolate them from their household members and to prevent the spread of the virus. We want to secure the safety of their family members as well as the community,” he added.
Pineda noted that in previous months, some Covid-19 patients refused to leave their houses and do not want to be transferred to the city’s quarantine facility. They also forwarded the list of names to the City Legal Office for the filing of charges against them.
He stressed that refusing extraction and staying at the positive patient's residence will cause hazardous exposure of household members, resulting in the spread of Covid-19 infections to more people.
He added that non-cooperation violates Section 9 of the Republic Act 11332, otherwise known as the "Law on Reporting of Communicable Diseases.”
Pineda said the city still has enough quarantine facilities to accommodate Covid-19 patients, with a total of 1,129 beds still available.
As of July 12, Bacolod City had a total of 14,054 Covid-19 cases. Of the number, 12,264 patients already recovered, 1,462 were active cases and 325 were deaths.
The EOC also commended the extraction cluster personnel for their hard work.