Boris, my nine-year-old, now has a cough, too. Buck called the barangay at 8 a.m., but was told the person in charge wasn’t there. We pressed for someone to talk to us and tell us what we’re supposed to do now. There was no one. We called again at 11 a.m. No one could give us useful information.
I was furious when I called the barangay again at 1 p.m. It had been 16 hours since we first reported our situation. I made it clear to the barangay kagawad (council member) who took the phone call that there were children in the house who, as we were speaking, were being exposed to Covid-19. Sensing my anger and desperation, the kagawad said they would go to our house with a team from the City Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit (CESU) who happened to be roving in our barangay that morning. Thirty minutes later, they finally arrived.
We agreed to move Auntie Liza temporarily to a barangay isolation facility because the city’s “HOPE” community centers were full. They told us they would fetch Auntie Liza tomorrow to have her checked by a doctor and then bring her to the facility. We were told to get RT-PCR tests ourselves, which they said the city health officials would facilitate. I cancelled the private tests we had scheduled earlier.
We were also instructed to undergo 14-day quarantine, which would end on April 8. By evening, Boris had diarrhea and was complaining of chest pains.