TEAMS led by the Department of Health (DOH) are set to conduct house-to-house visits in 10 barangays in 10 different cities in Metro Manila as part of efforts to find people who have been infected with Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
In a virtual press briefing Friday, August 7, 2020, DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the 10 barangays are:
"What we are targeting are areas with clustering of infection and in the next two weeks, we have already identified 10 barangays in the National Capital Region, where our teams will be visiting," said Vergeire.
"We are adopting the Dharavi model in Mumbai, wherein they conducted house-to-house activities, asked questions similar to tracing people in the barangay that have symptoms," said Vergeire.
She said they will also collect specimens from those eligible to be swabbed during the community visits.
"We will also look for the close contacts of those with exposure to give them advice that they need to be isolated," she furthered.
Authorities will also check on those undergoing home quarantine to determine compliance to the requirements of single bedroom, single bathroom, and no vulnerable population at home.
For the pilot testing phase, Vergeire said the teams who will conduct the visitations will be composed of DOH personnel and representatives of the local government units.
She said this will be their way of training local government personnel on how to properly manage localized lockdowns.
"Local health officials would still play a critical role because we are just guiding them, showing them how to do it. Eventually, they have to do it within their locality. We just wanted to show them what are the appropriate actions when having a strict lockdown," said Vergeire. (HDT/VoxPop Philippines)