Swab test for vendors to push through

By Dolly Yasa

 

BACOLOD City – Vice Mayor El Cid Familiaran, head of the local Inter-Agency Task Force against the coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19, said Friday that the mandatory surveillance testing for vendors in three major markets in the city will push through today, Oct 10, 2020.

In line with this, Mayor Evelio Leonardia issued Friday afternoon Executive Order No. 66 Series of 2020 which mandates surveillance testing on vendors in Burgos, Central, and Libertad markets.

The EO also stated that the decisive action of the Emergency Operation Center (a scheme used in Cebu to combat Covid-19) “are gaining favorable results and progressive momentum as of this time and that the present Surveillance Testing to be conducted on  the vendors in the three major public markets is included among its planned programs and activities.”

The Surveillance Testing ticket system will be applied, the EO added.

Vendors and their co-workers who are willing to submit themselves to diagnostic test  will be issued ” Permission Ticket or Market Pass”  to gain access to their stalls inside the markets or allowed to sell in the premises of the market.

Aside from being issued Permission Ticket or Market Pass, vendors who cooperate shall have their stalls or area posted with the notice “compliant.”

In the event the vendors/co-workers test positive, they will be extracted and committed to quarantine/isolation under existing quarantine/ isolation policies.

This means that their continued business operations will depend upon their act of cooperating with the Surveillance Testing.

Earlier, some vendors at the Burgos and Libertad markets staged a noise barrage in protest against the mandatory surveillance testing.

However, on Thursday leaders of the vendors in the three major public markets signed a statement in support of the activity but appealed to the city government to ensure support to them as a consequence of the swab test.