In the midst of the pervading situation brought by the coronavirus disease 2019, a doctor has asked residents to follow the Luzon-wide extreme enhanced community quarantine (EECQ) as a way of decreasing the spread of the virus.
Dr. Maximo Sucdad Jr. of the Benguet General Hospital took to Facebook his frustration over the seemingly business as usual attitude of some individuals not heeding the call to quarantine in La Trinidad, Benguet.
The municipality successfully implemented its two-day EECQ on March 30 to 31 following the news on two positive cases in the locality. However, upon the lifting of the EECQ, a long line of vehicles was seen at the main highway of the town.
“Are these hard-headed people worth risking our lives for?” Sucdad asked.
He said two days after the EECQ, he noticed a number of people and vehicles were out.
“We are just starting the fight against the Covid-19 and we had just the first local transmission locally but we all behave like this. More than half of hospital operations have already been paralyzed because wards and private rooms have already been converted into isolation rooms for PUIs and the Covid-19 positive patients,” he said.
Sucdad said if the cases continue to rise, the hospital will then be in its full capacity and will need to open other areas for offsite quarantine. He said this will be a problem later on because of the lack of medical frontline workers.
“One by one, our frontliners will be subjected to quarantine and who will be left to look after these patients? Maawa naman po kayo sa lahat ng health workers. Huwag niyo na pong hintayin na matamaan kayo ng Covid-19 tsaka kayo mag-iisip at magsisisi na hindi kayo nakinig,” he said.
“Please help us also so that we all can overcome this crisis. If the increase of positive cases will be exponential, then it will be a problem to all of us. We will just be watching each other die just like in Italy,” he said.
La Trinidad Municipal Police Station head, C/Insp. Cliff Vencio said many residents went to the central business district that day to do their errands, lifting of the number coding scheme, opening of non-essential shops such as hardware, office and school supplies, and autoshops, and the reopening of the trading post contributed to the gridlock, among other factors. – Ofelia C. Empian
