ILOILO City – Cebu City’s “good practices” against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) now serve as this city’s template to arrest the spread of the viral illness.
Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) deputy chief implementer for the Visayas Melquiades Feliciano had been assessing Iloilo City and Bacolod City since last week.
“We are here to share some good practices in Cebu City on how contain the spread of COVID,” said Feliciano, a retired general.
Feliciano and his team met with different cluster heads of Iloilo City’s COVID-19 Emergency Operation Center (EOC).
They discussed how to harmonize anti-COVID-19 approaches and activities of Iloilo City.
“One of our purposes is to involve (all government agencies) in all the activities of the EOC. We have discussed many issues and concerns on how we can make the EOC of Iloilo City proactive in all approaches,” said Feliciano.
They also tackled how to capacitate laboratories in the city to address the COVID test backlogs.
Feliciano lauded Iloilo City for having systems already in place in so far as its efforts against the unseen enemy are concerned.
“Iloilo has an advantage. It has already these approaches in place. What we will do is centralize them,” Feliciano explained.
The IATF executive said the aim is to hasten the implementation of all these systems and approaches.
“If you cannot do it fast, COVID will slip away. Probably, in a matter of week starting from now, especially that we are conducting contact tracing trainings. We can start all the operations probably by Wednesday and Thursday,” Feliciano added.
Mayor Jerry Treñas thanked Feliciano for streamlining the operation center of the city.
“We are grateful. Considering the number of cases going up, the efforts of General Feliciano is very much welcome,” said Treñas./PN
