Zumba by the beach is the fun way the municipality of Concepcion in Iloilo is boosting the immunity of its residents who have tested positive for COVID-19 and are quarantined in a beach resort turned off-site Isolation Facility (IF) in Malangabang Island.
The municipality located in the northern part of Iloilo has 211 active cases: 109 are isolated at the Malangabang IF, 53 at the Shalom IF in Barangay Bacjawan Sur, 15 on home quarantine, 26 at the Palm Concepcion Power Corporation (PCPC) IF, three are in Iloilo City and five in Sara District Hospital (SDH) in Sara, Iloilo.
“Zumba has been a routine for them since almost 96 percent of the cases are asymptomatic.”
Concepcion Mayor Raul Banias said Zumba has been a routine for them since almost 96 percent of the cases are asymptomatic.
They are properly monitored to ensure that they observe safe physical distancing, do hand sanitizing, and wearing a face mask.
“Only those who are asymptomatic and who have completed at least seven days in the isolation facility are allowed to go out on the beach to sun themselves and do Zumba for their exercise,” Banias explained.
While Zumba is permitted at the off-site IF, he said that they are studying if they can have it replicated safely in their main isolation facility, which is a housing facility of the National Housing Authority in Bacjawan Sur.
“Now we are trying to reassess how we can ably do this because there are private groups who volunteer and they could probably lead in the Zumba for able-bodied isolates,” Banias, who is also a medical doctor by profession, said.
Before, he added that they used to have spiritual and devotional visits as well as a mental health program for their COVID-19 patients.
The town has a high caseload but they are trying their best to control them, Banias said.
“The approach should be aggressive. It is very expensive, no doubt but that is the only way that we can control the spread of COVID-19 until all of us are vaccinated,” he said.
Banias said it is good for those who will be identified and isolated because they can no longer transmit and spread the disease but he is sure there are many undetected, causing the spread of the disease.
Malangabang Island is one of the island barangays of Concepcion with over 3, 500 population.
It is currently experiencing a surge in cases following the positive result of the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test conducted on their lone sentinel case as a requirement for those returning abroad.
Contact tracing and rigorous tests were immediately conducted and those found positive were immediately isolated.
The local government unit also imposed surgical and granular lockdown in three purok (zones) of Malangabang’s Sitio Baliguian where there are houses found to be at risk for Covid-19.
The lockdown, which started on June 29, 2021, will be eased once there are no more positive cases results based on their testings.
“The isolation facility and households affected by the lockdown are provided with food and essential needs.”
The isolation facility and households affected by the lockdown are provided with food and essential needs despite the logistical difficulty that we encounter in managing the pandemic, Banias said.
The local government unit has a “No Retreat, No Surrender” team to monitor and attend to the needs of their COVID-19 affected residents.
The mayor said he already considered COVID-19 as endemic since “it is now here brought by the mobility of people and probably by asymptomatic carriers. If you look at the epidemiological data, 95 percent of our positive cases are asymptomatic and are recovering eventually.”
He said that COVID-19 will be like flu that goes off and on until the eligible population will be fully vaccinated.
