A health terror named COVID-19

After successfully ending an almost ten-hour long hostage-taking incident in Virramall shopping center in Greenhills that threatened the otherwise peaceful city of San Juan, freshman Mayor Francis Zamora found himself this time confronting a faceless terror threat in his city. A few days after he secured the March 2 hostage-taking with no one dying, Mayor Zamora fears he might be helpless this time to prevent anyone from death with the first confirmed cases of the highly infectious 2019 coronavirus, or COVID-19 for short.

And yesterday, the World Health Organization (WHO) has finally elevated COVID-19 from international public health concern to pandemic alert level. This came after COVID-19 have spread around to 114 countries and territories, with over 119,000 cases recorded worldwide.

As of this writing, from among the 16 cities and one municipality in Metro Manila, the city of San Juan has  seven residents, the highest number so far of infection cases from the COVID-19 contagion. Mayor Zamora candidly admitted he got the information last Friday from the Department of Health (DOH). With the DOH as the designated head of the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Emerging Infectious Diseases, Zamora disclosed, the city government of San Juan follows the official announcements about the COVID-19 must come from them.

This is to precisely prevent undue public panic over the growing confirmed cases of COVID-19 among Filipinos which as of the latest official count of the DOH, there were 19 new COVID infection all over the country. This brings the new total of 52 positive COVID infection, three of whom are still fighting for their lives, according to the latest official dispatch of the DOH as of yesterday.

Perhaps this is the reason why Zamora finds it not so hard to admit that San Juan City has the highest COVID-19 cases in Metro Manila when he revealed this to us last Wednesday when he guested in our weekly Kapihan sa Manila Bay. With an ionizer hanging on his neck, Mayor Zamora arrived in our weekly breakfast news forum that we hold at the Café Adriatico in Remedios Circle Malate.

I almost did not immediately recognize the very tall Mayor of San Juan City when he came in with white N95 facemask covering his face.

Only last Friday, Mayor Zamora told us, the DOH informed him about the cases of seven people who turned positive of COVID-19 infection. This was because all of them are residents of San Juan City. Of this seven, Zamora noted, four of them got infected of COVID-19 from Patient No.5 who frequented the Muslim prayer room inside the Greenhills shopping center in San Juan City.

Patient No.5 is the country’s first local COVID-19 case. He is a 62-year-old man who subsequently infected his wife and became Patient No.6. She, in turn, became the first case in the Philippines of a community or local transmission of COVID-19. The couple though hails from Cainta City in Rizal.

While the couple may not be residents of San Juan City, Mayor Zamora wryly noted the seven COVID-19 cases were added to the 33 total that the DOH confirmed last Tuesday night. Or this was a day after Zamora joined other Metro Manila Mayors who attended the meeting called by President Duterte with the Task Force members led by DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III at Malacanang. At that meeting, he added, all the Metro Manila local government units (LGUs) were “clustered” together in the DOH monitoring of all COVID-19 cases in the Philippines.

As of Tuesday, he noted, there were 90 persons under monitoring but 32 of them have already been cleared as negative of COVID-19. The rest are under contact-tracing by San Juan City health officials.

But the next day, the COVID-19 infection cases of San Juan City climbed to eight. In an official statement released by City Hall, the Mayor announced the patient was transferred to a tertiary hospital here in Metro Manila and is currently in stable condition.

The local chief executive reminded anew his constituents in San Juan City to constantly practice proper hygiene such as hand-washing, cleaning their houses using chlorox which is commonly used in many household cleaning chemicals mixed with water. He also urged their constituents to regularly clean their surroundings areas.

But while the neophyte Mayor frowns upon suggestions from certain quarters to impose “lockdown” to contain the spread of COVID-19, the San Juan police conducted yesterday a simulation exercise for a “lockdown” scenario in their city. San Juan City police chief Col. Jaime Santos, however, quickly sought out media clarification the “lockdown” was just a dry-run practice of their policemen should there be an official order to implement in worst case scenario of wild spread COVID-19 infection.

 The “lockdown” scenario was earlier confirmed by no less than the DOH Secretary as the head of the Task Force that included this option as part of the national contingency measures to prevent widespread COVID-19 infection. San Juan City police chief expressed confidence the local police force can secure the 16 entry and exit points around the city.

The city of San Juan, being the geographical center of Metro Manila, is traversed daily by motorists heading to different parts of the National Capital Region. We had to cut short our Kapihan sa Manila Bay to allow Mayor Zamora to attend the scheduled inauguration of the newly reconstructed Pinaglabanan Bridge that was closed down late 2018 to make way for the Skyway Stage 3 project. At least 8,000 motorists daily are using the Pinaglabanan Bridge, formerly called as the Old Sta. Mesa Bridge connecting the cities of Manila and San Juan. 

With all the protective personal equipment he has with him, we still opted to observe “social distancing” instead of the usual formalities of shaking hands with the Mayor nor made any attempt of “beso-beso,” or hug-and-kiss at the Kapihan sa Manila Bay. This is in compliance, Mayor Zamora quipped with a smile that we are all bound to follow the protocols of the Task Force to prevent the spread of this health terror named COVID-19.