More than a year since the pandemic hit, the public should by now have realized that proper wearing of a face mask is the basic protection against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), Iloilo Governor Arthur Defensor emphasized on Friday, May 7.

He said proper wearing of face masks is important, as contact tracing conducted among COVID-19 confirmed cases in the province shows that many positive patients came from social gatherings where people removed their face masks.

Defensor is preparing a new Executive Order (EO) on health protocols to “prevent the surge of Covid-19 and to maintain MGCQ (modified general community quarantine) levels of prevalence and transmission towards a new normal”.

His latest EO 183-O issued last April 30 was to extend the MGCQ declared in the province, which took effect on May 1.

Defensor said he wanted to finish the new EO by the weekend and have it presented to the mayors of the province’s 42 municipalities and one component city by next week.

He added that the province aims for less than one average daily attack rate for every 100,000 population. As of Friday, the average daily positive case is 17.5, the governor said.

To reduce the number of daily infections, Defensor said “the most important of all is the face mask. There is nothing more important than the face mask.”

Data from the Iloilo Provincial Health Office showed that as of May 7, the province has 6,215 total cumulative confirmed cases composed of 5,743 recoveries, 297 active cases, and 175 recorded deaths.

To boost testing, the province is ready with its molecular laboratory and even has a spare reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) machine.

The contact tracing team is likewise ready to help municipalities to locate those exposed to confirmed cases within 24 hours.

The province is also buying vaccines “if possible and if there are available” since there is a limited supply in the world market.

The Hospital Management Office (HMO) must be ready to augment laboratory supplies and medicines, ready to expand Covid-19 dedicated beds, and ready to identify budget when there is a need to increase personnel, the governor said as part of their province’s continuous move to fight the pandemic.

Defensor said the province has ready containment facilities and would partner with the private sector with ready tents to be able to “link up with the hospitals so that they can be an extension of tertiary hospitals”.PNA