The Davao City government has emptied three schools of quarantined individuals to conform with the guidelines to cease using state-run schools as quarantine or isolation facilities.
Since the coronavirus outbreak, the city government’s three schools have been used as quarantine or isolation facilities – the Kapitan Tomas Monteverde Sr. Central Elementary School, Teodoro Palma Gil Elementary School, and Bolton Elementary School. Bolton School has been used for medical healthcare workers.
On Monday, May 25, 2020, a total of 42 individuals from Barangay 23-C quarantined at the Kapitan Tomas have been transferred to a new isolation facility. The Kapitan Tomas was the last of the three schools to cease as quarantine/isolation facilities.
City Health Office (CHO) chief Dr. Josephine Villafuerte said that of the 42 individuals mostly from the Badjao community of Barangay 23-C, are asymptomatic of the coronavirus infection.
Although asymptomatic, 23 have been confirmed positive of the coronavirus. They will be subjected to another test.
Villafuerte said the Davao City Covid-19 Task Force has decided a new approach to isolate them to make sure that no one will escape from the quarantine facilities.
She added that all individuals positive of the coronavirus will be in two separate isolation rooms. The others still waiting for results will be in separate rooms (15 in one room).
This set-up, according to Villafuerte, is better for them because they prefer to be close with their extended families.
“Their culture is different from us so we have decided to pursue another approach that is culturally sensitive. They have practices in their culture that we do not understand,” Villafuerte said. CIO
