By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga
A total of 19 departments and offices in the Silay City government in Negros Occidental will be temporarily locked down effective today until May 28 for disinfection as part of the precautionary measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
This was after Mayor Mark Golez said that there were 10 identified COVID patients in the city hall’s building and compound from April 15 to May 19
In Special Executive Order No. 2021-05-07, series of 2021, offices under zoning containment or temporary lockdown include the City Legal, Assessor’s, Bids and Awards Committee, Accounting, Internal Audit, City Budget, City Nutrition, Community Affairs, Persons with Disabilities Affairs, Pantawid, City Treasurer’s, Business Permits and Licensing, City Environment and Natural Resources, Housing, Public Employment Service, Information Technology, Human Resource and Management, Office of the Register of Deeds, and Commission on Audit Silay satellite office.
“The City Health Office and Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office personnel shall conduct an extensive contact tracing and disinfecting measures during the containment period,” the mayor said.
Under the order, officials and employees of affected offices are required to undergo strict home quarantine.
The heads of the offices concerned should maintain a skeletal workforce to facilitate urgent and critical transactions and to ensure the unhampered delivery of public service, it added.
Only city government employees, including job order personnel, who will form part of the skeletal workforce, will be allowed to enter the affected offices, according to Golez.
Employees who have COVID symptoms or whose immediate family members in the same household had been identified by the Silay COVID-19 Task Force as probable, suspected, or confirmed cases, are ordered to work from home.
“Tighter health and community quarantine protocols must be kept high at all costs with or without COVID case involvement among offices and employees,” Golez said.
Other offices, departments, and divisions of the city government not included in the lockdown do not have any recent or existing cases, and as such, shall maintain their regular day-to-day operations to cater to the transacting public and ensure the continuity of the delivery of basic essential services, and shall strictly observe health and community quarantine protocols at all times.
Golez cited the Memorandum Circular No. 2, series of 2020, dated June 15, 2020, of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Disease and National Task Force Against Covid-19 that allows local chief executives to apply zoning containment strategies in areas needing prompt intervention and response to curb the COVID transmission./DGB, WDJ