Persons withholding information that could help prevent the spread of Covid-19 will face fines and jail terms in San Carlos City, Negros Occidental.
The warning was issued by Dr. Wilmer Yap, Emergency Operations Center incident commander, in response to reports that some San City residents deliberately withheld information of their possible exposure and travel history.
As of Thursday, there were 58 active cases of the 381 confirmed cases in San Carlos City, with 300 recoveries and 23 deaths.
Yap, who is also a councilor of San Carlos City, said contact tracers have been ordered to further intensify the tracing of individuals who have been exposed to confirmed Covid-19 patients, and also urged them to be truthful in providing information about their whereabouts and potential exposure for easier contact tracing and to avert further transmission.
Any person found violating provisions of Republic Act No. 11332, or the Mandatory Reporting of Notifiable Diseases and Health Events of Public Health Concern Act, will be held accountable, with penalty ranging from a fine of not less than P20,000 but not more than P50,000, or imprisonment of not less than one month but not more than six months, or both, at the discretion of the court, Yap said, in an advisory of the San Carlos City LGU.
Meanwhile, employees and job order casuals assigned at the City Engineering, Public Market and Slaughterhouse departments of the San Carlos City government were subjected to drug testing on Nov. 26.
Ana Liza Macaraya Miranda of the City Legal Office said the conduct of drug testing was aimed at cleansing the local government unit of employees, who are hooked on illegal drugs.
A similar drug testing was also conducted on 71 employees assigned at the Engineering department on Nov. 20, Miranda said.
She noted that in every drug testing, one yielded positive result.
The latest test was the sixth one initiated by the San Carlos City government since the start of the year.*GPB
