Three puroks (subvillages) in Tagbilaran City and Calape have been placed on lockdown after two residents of both localities tested positive for coronavirus disease (COVID) 2019.
Tagbilaran City Mayor Baba Yap placed Purok 2 in Barangay Dao on lockdown on June 4 immediately after he announced that a resident of the area tested positive for COVID-19. Barangay Lawis in Calape which also recorded its first positive case on the same day followed suit.
Health authorities on Thursday confirmed two new COVID-19 cases in the province—an 89-year-old Calape man who died of severe myocardial infarction secondary to community-acquired pneumonia at the Governor Celestino Gallares Memorial Hospital on May 26 and a Tagbilaran woman who has been admitted at the Ace Medical Center for difficulty in breathing and chest pain.
According to Lawis, Calape Barangay Captain Jeanie Verano, they placed two puroks on lockdown—one was the residence location of the town’s positive case and the other was the area of his son’s house.
“Bale duha ka purok among gi-lockdown, kadtong dapit sa balay sa namatay ug dapit sa balay sa iyahang anak,” she said.
Contact-tracing efforts started in Calape on May 27, a day after the patient’s death. This was done as part of protocol which directs health authorities to trace contacts of all persons who die of SARI (severe acute respiratory infections).
According to Calape Mayor Nelson Yu, all individuals determined to have been in contact with the COVID-positive person have been on quarantine for nine days already and all protocols in handling SARI patients were observed.
“Gilubong ang patay nga lawas sulod sa 12 ka oras subay sa order sa attending physician sa Gallares Hospital. Ug hingpit nga gituman ug gisunod ang mga protocols sa Department of Health in dandling remains of Covid positive bisan paman wala pa nigawas ang resulta sa test,” Yu said.
Yap, in a statement, said that they started to contact trace immediately after being informed that a resident of the city tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday.
Those pinpointed to have had contact with the patient will be subjected to rapid antibody testing, he added.
The two new cases were the third and fourth COVID-19 cases in the province.
Both of them had no travel history as they were not overseas Filipino workers nor locally stranded individuals.
Dr. Mutya Macuno, GCGMH medical chief and member of the Capitol’s technical working group on emerging infectious disease, said it is important for them to determine if the patients were in contact with an LSI or an OFW.
She described the COVID-19 patient at the GCGMH as a “COVID-19-diagnosed case in the community.”