NOTE: THIS STORY WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE BOHOL CHRONICLE’S SUNDAY PRINT EDITION.

“It is never safe to let locally stranded individuals  and overseas contract workers to have their isolation in their respective homes, instead of at the supervised quarantine facilities.”

This was the categorical statement issued by Dr. Kazan Baluyot , president of the Philippine College of Physicians (Bohol chapter) who voiced out the physicians stand on the issue on health protocols.

During a zoom meeting with the town mayors last Tuesday,  Baluyot made clear the earlier stand of the medical cluster that it is indeed difficult to be assured that proper health protocols are followed once the person is not closely supervised  on home quarantine even if the basic requirement of a separate room with private rest room be followed.

Dr. Baluyot likewise said they are against the 72-hour prior departure negative PCR test results as they find the three-day period to be too long for a person to be given the presumption that he is assured to be Covid free. 

The third stand of the doctors’ group is the need to maintain the 14-day isolation and not the protocol that will allow arriving persons to be released from their quarantine facilities once after they get negative PCR results based on a swab test taken on the sixth day after his arrival.

The strict 14-day quarantine remains as the safest and the most inexpensive way for a person to get assured that he is Covid free, since he will no longer be required to get a PCR test , Dr. Baluyot stressed.

The need for a granular lockdown on homes with Covid  positive patients  should likewise be strictly implemented, the doctor’s official said.

The doctors’ stand was earlier heard when the Bohol Medical Society (BMS)  signed a joint agreement with the Phil. College of Physicians (Bohol Chapter) enumerating their stand regarding health protocols.