With the implementation of Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, some basic medical commodities are already not available in the market. Maasin City was not spared from the much-needed alcohol being “out-of-stock”.

In response to this necessity, the city, in close coordination with the Department of Public Works and Highways and the City Engineering Office, installed 13 handwashing sinks. These are installed in strategic places of the city such as the city hall and the fish, vegetables, meat, and dry market sections of the city’s public market.

In the absence of alcohol or hand sanitizer, washing hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds or more is proven effective in the fight against the spread of various microorganisms including the COVID-19 virus.

Respiratory viruses—like the novel coronavirus, the flu, and the common cold—can be spread via our hands. If someone is sick, a hand can touch some mucus and viral particles will stick to the hand. If someone is well, hands act like sticky traps for viruses. We can pick up droplets that contain the virus, and they’ll stay on our hands, and perhaps enter our bodies if we touch our hands to our faces.  There’s one consumer product critical to our great national battle to “flatten the curve,” or slow the pandemic: soap.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends washing hands with soap and water as the top way to clean our hands. That’s because when you wash your hands with soap and water, you’re not just wiping viruses off your hands and sending them down the drain. You’re actually annihilating the viruses, rendering them harmless. "Soap is almost like a demolition team breaking down a building and taking all the bricks away,” a chemist said. #CPDotollo