The regional office of the Department of Health (DOH-Davao Region) reminded bars and establishments in Davao Region to closely monitor the implementation of the minimum public health standards this after a video of people queueing and partying inside a bar in Ilustre Street, Davao City violating wearing of face mask and social distancing protocols has gone viral over the weekend.
The viral video happened days after the city government lifted the modified liquor ban.
“We need to closely coordinate and what we did we informed immediately our counterpart kung may na report na ganon na activities that there are areas that are not compliant to the minimum public health standards so we can inform our partners for timely and appropriate actions,” said Dr. Gerna Manatad, assistant regional director of DOH-Davao Region in a virtual presser on Monday.
Manatad reiterated that there is a need to closely coordinate and inform DOH-Davao Region’s counterparts of the areas and establishments that are not compliant with the minimum public health standards (MPHS).
She said data and information sharing are important for DOH-Davao Region to come up with appropriate actions like contact tracing and matching data with the on-ground situation.
“Yung action at pag- implement natin in terms of compliance sa minimum health standards and other containment could also depend on sa classification or alert level ng ating areas. So Davao City is on Aert Level 2, based also on the policy of the LGU it has lifted the liquor ban. What is our action here is we need to continuously monitor and inform the LGUs and even the community if there are establishments who are not consistently implementing the minimum health standards,” she said.
The Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) has placed Davao City, Davao del Sur, Davao del Norte and Davao Oriental in Davao Region under Alert Level 2 from February 16 to 28, 2022.
Meanwhile, Manatad reported that there is a decreasing trend in the region’s positivity rate. She said the region’s average positivity rate in the first week of February was at 36. 2 percent and dropped in the second week at 20 percent and on the third week, it continued to drop significantly to 11.6 percent.
“Zero positivity rate would be the ideal situation that means no one is being infected already but now our goal is to get it back to below 5 percent. With the decreasing positivity rate, we all need to keep our guard up, vaccination coverage up, if you want to keep the transmission levels low to our normal activities and to have also our normal way of life,” she said.
