THE QUARANTINE facility at the parade ground of the National Headquarters in Camp Crame has been dismantled to allow cops to do physical exercises inside the area, Philippine National Police (PNP) chief, Gen. Debold Sinas said Tuesday.
“We are now approaching, practicing going to the new normal. We encourage our people to engage in physical exercise using the parade ground but they should wear face masks, observe physical distancing and use face shields," Sinas told reporters.
Sinas said they have also adjusted their response to PNP personnel who were infected by the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), especially in the National Capital Region which has the most number of policemen with Covid-19, to allow others to conduct physical exercises inside the camps.
“We have dismantled the quarantine facility at the parade ground because if it stays there, our personnel cannot come near it because of the suspected Covid-19 cases there. We have a different strategy, we have seen other facilities outside Camp Crame where we can bring our infected personnel,” he said.
As of Monday night, a total of 7,892 police personnel have tested positive for Covid-19. Of which, 396 were active cases while 26 have died of the virus.
Nine patients were added to the total number of recoveries at 7,470 as of Monday night.
Meanwhile, Sinas has ordered anew the monitoring of Body Mass Index (BMI) of police personnel as a preventive measure against the Covid-19.
Sinas said they are imposing a four-minute exercise for all PNP personnel which should be done twice a day, in the morning and in the afternoon.
“It was suspended (monitoring of BMI) before I become the chief PNP because of Covid-19. Now, I talked with the new DHRDD (Directorate for Human Resource Doctrine Development) chief because obesity causes diabetes, heart disease which are comorbidities for Covid-19,” he noted.
BMI depends on a person’s height. A high BMI can indicate high body fatness which may lead to health problems although studies show that is not diagnostic of the body fatness or health of an individual.
For most adults, an ideal BMI is ranging from 18.5 to 24.9. A range of 25 to 29.9 is considered overweight while those having 30 and above are considered obese. (By Christopher Lloyd Caliwan)