THE MAYOR of Arteche, Eastern Samar has asked returning residents displaced by pandemic to postpone plans to go back home since the local government is still busy in the recovery efforts after Typhoon Ambo ravaged their town.
Mayor Roland Boie Evardone said in a phone interview on Thursday that all local government personnel are still busy in the relief and recovery activities while their isolation facility meant for suspected carriers of coronavirus was badly damaged by the typhoon three weeks ago.
“If your reason to return is to check what happened to your house after Typhoon Ambo, you won’t be able to do that because we will isolate you first,” Evardone said.
Evardone made this appeal after several overseas Filipino workers and locally stranded individuals in Leyte, Samar and Biliran provinces turned positive of Covid-19 based on test results released in the past two weeks.
Returning residents will be held at the checkpoint in Buenavista village the designated holding area. They will be brought immediately to the designated makeshift isolation facility for a 14-day quarantine.
“The LGU is trying to avoid the further problem of having a Covid-19 infected resident due to arrival of people coming from Manila and other regions with many coronavirus cases,” he said.
“We were just hit by typhoon and we wanted to avoid having a case in our municipality because our fund is already depleted," he added.
The town had a total of 4,602 families or more than 19,000 individuals affected by Typhoon Ambo with some having lost their houses.
The town continues its relief operations to affected families providing them food packs and helping those with destroyed houses through the provision of housing materials to rebuild their homes.
Arteche is a third-class town in Eastern Samar province with a population of over 16,000. The town is located 205 kilometers northeast of Tacloban, the regional capital. (By Roel Amazona)
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