The COVID-19 Playbook: How local cities are containing the novel coronavirus

A rundown of best practices
Apr 16, 2020
PHOTO: Jerome Ascano

ON Good Friday, Baguio City recorded its first case of COVID-19 in almost two weeks.

Mayor Benjie Magalong immediately moved to lock down the barangays of Upper and Lower Dagsian, Hillside, and Scout Barrio, reported CNN Philippines. The city is now tracking everyone who came in contact with the new case, a 46-year-old street sweeper from Dagsian.

This incident only proves the stubbornness and danger of the novel coronavirus. Even when we think we’ve built a comfortable lead, the highly contagious virus leaps to more people and begins its deadly incubation.


Singapore, for example, was initially lauded as a model nation in the midst of the pandemic. But then its case numbers rose sharply in recent days. At least 386 new cases were reported on April 14.

South Korea, meanwhile, has even confirmed that 116 people who have recovered from COVID-19 have tested positive for the virus again.

The COVID-19 situation changes by the day. Communities, cities, and even entire nations that have declared tentative success are facing a constantly moving goalpost and a battle that is still far from over.

Still, in the Philippines, a few key cities have stood out in this pandemic.


ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW ↓

“[N]agsilbing ehemplo ang mga LGUs ng Manila, Valenzuela, Marikina, Pasig, Baguio, Davao, Caraga, at Bicol region,” said National Action Plan against COVID-19 Chief Implementer Sec. Carlito Galvez in an address last Easter Sunday.

In these cities, he continued, “mahigpit ngunit maayos nilang ipinatupad ang ECQ [enhanced community quarantine].”

The lockdown, the government stressed, has been instrumental in curbing the spread of COVID-19. Galvez said that if ECQ had not been rolled out, academics and international experts predicted that the number of cases could have ranged from 144,000 to 550,000 in the period from April to June.

So what did these LGUs do right? Here’s their COVID-19 playbook.

Mass testing


CONTINUE READING BELOW ↓
Watch Now

As the count of confirmed cases climbed, mass testing became a key rallying cry on social media. With test kit procurement and multiple lab facilities now finally on track, the national government is finally ready to mass test suspected cases and persons under monitoring.

On Saturday, Valenzuela Mayor Rex Gatchalian announced that wide-scale testing will be rolled out to his city. It’s been described in various reports as the first localized, targeted mass testing in the country.

ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW ↓

Priority for the tests? At least 242 suspected cases, and at least 295 monitored persons, within the city. The tests were purchased from South Korea, and The Medical City in Pasig will be analyzing the results.

Contact tracing


In the outbreak of any infectious disease, health officials often need to play detective: sniffing out everyone an infected person has recently been in close contact with so they can monitor them for infection. This painstaking method is called contact tracing.

ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW ↓

For example, as a lockdown descended on Manila, numerous Bicolanos fled the capital city to return to their homes. By March 20, local government units and the regional offices of the Department of Health reported that because of this mass exodus, they now needed to monitor more than 97,000 persons for the coronavirus, as people from virus-hit areas interacted with people from their hometown.

"[P]atuloy pa ang contact tracing," DOH Bicol health education and promotion officer Noemi Bron told Manila Bulletin last April 4.

In Baguio, citizens helped the process along by actually going public with their names.

“Transparency is actually key to earlier detection, key to contact tracing, key to prevention," Baguio’s Mayor Magalong said in an interview with CNN Philippines’ The Source.

Patients, he narrated, were hesitant at first. But they eventually agreed, upon the mayor’s prodding. “It helped us a lot [to] control the spread of the virus," Magalong said.

ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW ↓

While this certainly appeared to be effective, this raises a number of privacy and security concerns, especially as acts of discrimination are on the rise against people associated with COVID-19.

Social amelioration


The fight against COVID-19 isn’t just a public health war. It’s also an economic one.

ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW ↓

With businesses and transportation temporarily shuttered, many workers — a significant number of whom are no-work, no-pay — are without a source of income.

LGUs moved in to answer their needs, distributing essential supplies and goods in their local communities. Early on in the pandemic timeline, Manila Mayor Isko Moreno “distributed thousands of food packs with his fellow officials for the disenfranchised Manileños under the lockdown,” reported Rappler’s Rambo Talabong.

In Davao, Mayor and presidential daughter Sara Dutere announced that they had just completed the distribution of 428,571 grocery packs — more than 70,000 packs over their initial target.

ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW ↓

And in Pasig, Vico Sotto ordered the city government to pick up the slack in the national government’s social assistance dole-outs. The LGU will distribute some P8,000 in cash to 113,000 families that were not included in DSWD records — even if Sotto, by his own admission, didn’t exactly know where he would get the money.

“Yung pera ng Pasig na nasa trust fund, ilalabas natin... Magsasakripisyo tayo, maghihigpit tayo ng sinturon, may mga programang kakanselahin muna natin," the mayor said on a Facebook Live broadcast last April 13.

Aid doesn’t need to always come in the form of hand-outs. With mass transportation indefinitely parked, even improving access to food and supplies can go a long way. In Bicol, Department of Agriculture research stations serve as KADIWA Centers — essentially, mobile palengkes similar to the ones rolled out in Pasig and Valenzuela.

In other locales, aid comes in the form of food vouchers: numbered stubs for the orderly claiming of food packs. Cainta was among the first communities to distribute these stubs, with Mayor Kit Nieto posting a picture of food stub number 0001 on his social media pages way back on March 17.

ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW ↓

Innovation


ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW ↓

Other LGUs are also deploying more high-tech methods to the frontlines.

For some cities, that meant automation — specifically, the use of drones. Sotto’s Pasig City, for example, deployed disinfectant drones in the early part of ECQ. (The DOH, however, recently questioned the efficacy of misting and spraying, saying last April 10 that “[t]here is no evidence to support that spraying of surfaces or large scale misting of areas, indoor or outdoor with disinfecting agents, kills the virus.”)

Marikina also deployed its own drone. This airborne robot checked temperatures in the city’s public market, and played pre-recorded messages warning to shoppers to maintain a one-meter physical distance.

SEE ALSO
SEE ALSO

But perhaps Marikina’s most ambitious stab at innovative solutions against COVID-19 is its ongoing battle to set up its own testing center. As early as March 13 — even before the start of enhanced community quarantine — Mayor Marcy Teodoro was already talking to a private biotech firm (the same one that would later go on to manufacture the UP-developed virus test kits) to set up a COVID-19 testing facility in the city.

ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW ↓

At the time, only the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine in Muntinlupa was qualified to conduct tests. Teodoro clarified that his aim was to help, and not replace, the government’s own testing protocols.

Now, one month later — and not after a long and protracted battle of accreditation as DOH inspectors surveyed the proposed facility’s biosafety standards — Teodoro is ready to open the doors of the facility. He told CNN Philippines that he is not waiting anymore for the health department’s approval.

“Hindi nila binibigay 'yung license to operate, pero ang tanong ko ay ito: may krisis e, kailangan pa ba 'yun?" he said. “Minabuti naming magkaroon ng initiative dahil dumadami ang kaso namin ng COVID-19 dito sa Marikina at malaking kasalanan sa tao, tingin ko, kung wala kang gagawin.”

On Wednesday, April 15, DOH undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that the Marikina testing facility was only at stage 3 of a five-stage testing process, and said that any testing lab without proper protocols in place would only harm the community.

ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW ↓

She added: "We want Marikina to succeed. Kami po ay kaalyado nyo sa laban na ito."

Get more of the latest sports news & updates on SPIN.ph

Read Next
Watch Now
Sorry, no results found for
PHOTO: Jerome Ascano
  • POLL

    • Quiz

      Quiz Result