Bohol implements 9 AM-5 AM curfew

TAGBILARAN CITY, March 19, (PIA)—In a bid to break the life cycle of the virus causing the dreaded corona disease, Governor Arthur Yap has ordered a province-wide curfew, which is intended to deprive the virus of a human host by limiting or avoiding exposure and contact between persons.

Through Executive Order No.13, which the governor issued March 17, 2020, Boholanos and establishments all over the province are placed under curfew from 9:00 PM to 5 AM.

The order however exempts pharmacies and drugstores, employees and workers of telecommunications, electricity and water utilities doing maintenance and emergency repair work.

Also exempted from the curfew are medical personnel and other similarly tasked responders who are on duty at the time of curfew, the travel of uniformed personnel on official business especially those transporting medical supplies, laboratory specimen related to the corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19), other humanitarian assistance and for those responding to life threatening emergency situations.

The governor’s order said no person shall be allowed in the streets, commercial establishments, recreation centers, malls and any other areas outside the immediate vicinity of their residence during the duration of the curfew.

By doing this, the governor hopes to further strengthen and enhance the strict home quarantine as observed in all households, encourage work-from-home arrangements, restrict sea, air and land travel and impose existing international travel restrictions.

It may be recalled that through Executive Order Number 8 issued March 14, the governor has placed an entry travel ban to Bohol from March 15 to March 20 which puts the whole of Bohol in a community quarantine in a way to address the spreading threat of COVID-19 in the island province.    

Other executive orders, numbered 9 and 10 suspended classes in all levels of public and private institutions, cockfighting and all forms of events where people congregate as well as putting a mandatory self-quarantine to returning Boholanos from March 12-15, as Bohol has yet successfully insulated itself from the dreaded virus.

  

With school classes suspended and some workers opting to adopt flexible working arrangements, the governor noted several children and adults still loitering and gathering at public parks, internet cafes and similar establishments where people can congregate, these even extending until the wee hours of day.

As these practices heighten the exposition and human contact which helps the virus continue its life cycle and spread to other communities, the curfew is the government’s solution.

In the order, the governor argues that while the virus is transmitted through respiratory droplets carried when an infected person coughs and sneezes, depriving the virus of a human host for the disease-causing-pathogen to survive and multiply.

Without human host to allow the virus to live, it will die, that the governor sees the need to break the cycle of infection by depriving the virus of a host.

With the order, the government also empowers punong barangays and members of the barangay council as well as barangay peace keeping officers to implement the provisions of the executive order.

The same mandates the police to provide support whenever this is needed to enforce the order. (rahchiu/PIA-7/Bohol)

City bans minors in malls, businesses close at 8 PM

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, March 19, (PIA)—With the 9 PM to 5 AM curfew imposed all over Bohol, malls and commercial establishments, including balut vendors in Tagbilaran City are now directed to limit their daily operations up to 8:00 PM only.

And not only that, through Tagbilaran City Executive Order No 11, series of 2020 declaring a state of general community quarantine in the City of Tagbilaran and providing guidelines for its implementation says, anyone below 18 years old is prohibited from entering malls unless for emergency cases.

The business operations closure order however does not include the operation of pharmacies, medical centers and other health care establishments.

It also enjoins owners and operators of internet cafes, karaoke TV bars, movie houses and other places of leisure and entertainment to close their operations on March 19 until April 12, 202.

City Mayor John Geesnell Yap, through this EO, dated March 17, also mandated private establishments here to have mobile temperature scanning devices at all their entry points in their premises and should have liquid soap or hand sanitizers and 70 percent alcohol in the restrooms and common areas.

The move is on the pretext that the spread of the dreaded corona virus disease can be stopped by hand washing and depriving the virus of a host that social distancing can ably do.

If in the temperature scanning areas, an individual whose body heat exceeds 37.5 degrees centigrade, the person would be denied entry and advised to seek immediate medical care, and directed to the nearest health care provider.

Through the order, the city has also asked organizers of mass gatherings including cockfights, concerts, fiesta celebrations be they public or private to either cancel or postpone in an assertion of the health doctrine of social distancing.

As Bohol governor Arthur Yap issues Executive Order No. 13 to impose a province-wide curfew, Tagbilaran City moves and enhances the curfew with its provision of health checkpoints in all entry points to the city.

If at these checkpoints, health personnel manning the checkpoint find out that an individual has a body temperature exceeding 37.5, the individual is placed in a holding area and another round of temperature check is done after another few minutes.

If the same high temperature remains, the individual is sent to a qualified health care personnel or referred to the city’s Barangay Health Emergency Response Team (BHERT), or if non-resident, the checkpoint personnel will contact the municipal Health Emergency Team to pick the individual for possible self-quarantine.  

Over this, Tagbilaran City residents are strongly advised to stay in their homes, go out only to report to work, buy food, medicines and needed supplies or go for treatment.

No one should be in the malls, community centers, commercial areas and public areas just to hang out or loiter, the executive order states.

Government work, however is not disrupted, and the city has opted to implement alternative working arrangements. (rahchiu/PIA-7/Bohol)

NASAL SPRAY. Doctors here in Tagbilaran teach people how to make nasal sprays while a benevolent group gave nasal sprays to those whi allergic rhinitis as the city bids to end the problem of civid 19 quick. (PIABohol/foto by May Hope Arcenal)

MILITARY MEDICAL SOLUTION. While a curfew has been held over Bohol, Tagbilaran City puts in a twist with a medical team imbedded in the checkpoints, they are tasked to get temperature readings and deny entry to the city people who are potential virus carriers. (rahchiu/PIA-7/Bohol file photo)