BY CHRYSEE G. SAMLLANO
The Bacolod City Legal Office-Enforcement Unit and market supervisors inspected vendors of the three major public markets in the city yesterday to determine how many complied and how many had not participated in the COVID-19 surveillance testing conducted Saturday.
During the inspection, the stalls of market vendors who cooperated had a sign “complaint” posted, while the sign on the stalls of those who refused to be tested read “under process”, Executive Assistant Ernie Pineda said.
Those who submitted themselves to swab test were issued “permission ticket” to have access to their stalls inside the markets, he added.
Records from the office of City Administrator Em Ang show that about 1,786 market vendors in the three major public markets participated in the surveillance testing facilitated by the city government as part of its efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19.
Pineda said the specimens of the market vendors who were swabbed were sent to a laboratory in Cebu yesterday. They were assured that the results will be released within 24 hours.
He said there were some delays in the encoding of specimens because the number of market vendors who participated exceeded the number of those who had signified to undergo swab test.
Those who had not participated Saturday can still undergo the diagnostic test since the city government can schedule another date for them, he said.*
