Guidelines needed for ‘hot zone’ declaration

By Dolly Yasa

BACOLOD City – There is a need for specific guidelines before an area is declared as “hot zone” relative to efforts to contain the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), according to Mayor Ella Garcia-Yulo of Moises Padilla, Negros Occidental.

Earlier, Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson said a hot zone will be declared if an area has one COVID-19 positive patient, one person under investigation (PUI), or at least five Persons Under Monitoring (PUM.)

PUIs are individuals who travelled to places with cases of Covid-19 or were exposed to a positive case and manifested signs and symptoms of Covid-19 while PUMs are individuals who travelled to places with cases of Covid-19 or were exposed to a positive case and are asymptomatic.

Yulo said there are four barangays in the town that could be declared as hot zones as each has one PUI.

These are Barangays Guinpana-an (one PUI and 45 PUMs), Inolingan (one PUI and 11 PUMs), Magallon Cadre (one PUI and 26 PUM), and Montilla (one PUI and 13 PUMs).

An area that is declared a hot zone will be placed under extreme community quarantine for 14 days as an extreme measure to prevent the spread of COVID-19, Lacson said.

The governor said that residents in these areas will not be allowed to leave their houses while food will be delivered to them.

Yulo said that as chief executive, she will be the one to declare hot zones based on the recommendation of the Provincial Inter-Agency Task Force against COVID-19.

The local government unit will also sustain the food for residents living in the 100 to 200-meter radius from the residence of the PUI, something Yulo said will be hard to do.

Since the start of the ECQ Monday, Yulo said they have distributed foodstuffs to at least 8,000 households in the town as identified by the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

She said they will be distributing more food items to the identified beneficiaries soon.