By JUNE S. BLANCO
BOHOL’S 14 2nd District towns received five sets of personal protective equipment (PPEs) each as personal donation of Rep. Erico Aristotle Aumentado.
“The donation may just be a few, but this will ensure that all the Bohol’s 2nd District towns have protection when they will receive post-quarantine the repatriated overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and locally stranded individuals (LSIs),” the solon said.
He expects all these towns to have already procured PPEs. If these are still in transit – delayed because of the cancelled flights and fast craft or boat trips, his donation will take up the slack. But if these towns already have PPEs, his donation will boost their available stock, he said. He also expects that the Provincial Government will issue PPEs
As in the case of the first batch of OFW arrivals, a person may be corona virus disease (CoViD-19)-positive but asymptomatic. This is a most difficult situation, the solon said, because such patient can still infect the next person.
Such patient may have not exhibited symptoms because of a strong immune system that managed to fight off the virus. But there is no guarantee that the next person’s immune system may be as strong as his. Then the dreaded virus will strike and take its toll.
It is best to consider everyone as positive and asymptomatic, and practice identified protocols rather than be complacent and letting their guards down.
Premature lifting of the community quarantine can cause a second wave. If the health frontliners found it difficult in handling the first CoViD-19 positive patients, a second wave will surely leave the health system in shambles, Aumentado said.
A second wave happened during the Spanish flu era when, after the first wave petered out and the quarantine was lifted, the people took to the streets – threw all caution to the winds – to celebrate. Studies showed that remnants of that virus managed to stage a comeback that caused even more deaths than the first wave.
Aumentado urges his constituents to carry on observing protocols and fuarding their borders especially that the 2nd District has the most number of islets aside from being proximate to Cebu where the CoViD-19 is currently raging, and Leyte.
He admits that the districts coastline is tempting, especially to stranded Boholanos who want to be more comfortable at home.