CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – As part of its Covid-19 surveillance testing, the city government, in collaboration with the Bases Conversion and Development Authority, conducted aggressive community testing (ACT) at the Bren Z. Guiao Convention Center here Thursday.
An initial group of 872 frontliners and private business employees underwent swab testing using the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) conducted by the BCDA ACT team.
“We are doing this because—aside from this is part of our surveillance—gusto nating mapanatili yung business confidence ng mga tao. Sa mga frontliners naman, we want to make them feel that we care about their safety and security also,” said Dr. Renely Tungol, city health office OIC and chief of the incident management team.
“Ang ginawa natin pinili natin yung mga workers and nakipag-partner tayo with PamCham [Pampanga Chamber of Commerce and Industry] regarding this. Aside from the workers, sinama na rin natin yung mga frontliners ng city,” Tungol explained.
Tungol said they are targeting 1,500 frontliners and business employees for testing.
The ACT implementation is in response to the request of the LGU for the augmentation of extra test kits and swabbers to cater to a greater number of individuals.
BCDA will be forwarding the specimens to the Philippine Red Cross. Results will be given back to the CHO in two or three days.
Tungol noted the high possibility of positive cases from the RT-PCR test results: “We are expecting na meron and meron yan pero sana low cases lang yung turn out.”
Individuals who test positive will be subjected to 14 days quarantine at the city’s Covid-19 Kalingang Fernandino isolation facility.
