Filipinos inside a baseball stadium at Rizal Memorial Sports Complex, Manila, Philippines.
Manila:
Thousands of Filipinos were crammed into a baseball stadium in Manila on Saturday, breaking social distancing rules despite coronavirus risks, after people wishing to return to their home provinces flooded a government transportation program.
Officials had reserved the stadium to test people before returning them to their home provinces as part of a program to help people who had lost their jobs in the capital to return to their families elsewhere.
Officials had expected 7,500 people to arrive at the stadium from Friday, but were surprised when another 2,000 people who weren’t yet scheduled to make it there anyway.
“Due to the excessive number of people, we can no longer control (the situation) and the relevance of social distancing has been diminished,” Deputy Secretary Joseph Encabo, who oversees the government’s transportation assistance program, told Reuters. .
Police have been deployed to encourage social distancing, but people, including the elderly, children and pregnant women, have been seen in close contact with each other. Some were not wearing masks.
Many of those in the stadium were left stranded in the capital when it imposed one of the toughest and longest lockdowns in mid-March in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
This was relaxed in early June, allowing businesses to reopen in limited capacity, but schools remain closed and mass gatherings are prohibited. People should wear masks in public and observe a social distance of one meter, while children and the elderly are encouraged to stay home.
Coronavirus cases have more than quadrupled since restrictions were relaxed to 78,412, with more than half in the capital and surrounding areas.
Among those at the stadium was Fred Marick Ukol, 40, who got stranded in Manila after his flight to Australia, where he had found work as a welder, was canceled.
“We don’t have a job and now all of our savings have dried up because of the lockdown,” Ukol said, referring to himself and his Filipino colleagues abroad.
Encabo said everyone at the stadium will undergo rapid tests for COVID-19 and must be cleared before being allowed to board the buses, ships and trains the government has prepared.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
