Bacolod City, Negros Occidental— The Department of Health confirmed yesterday, August 12, that 2 individuals who tested positive of COVID-19 from this city was positive of the Delta variant.
“It is very unfortunate that this development came about at a time when our coronavirus infections are on a steady decline the past two weeks and our vaccination rollout is going full swing,” Mayor Evelio Leonardia said in a statement.
According to the data released by the health bureau the first case of Delta variant positive was a 71-year-old male resident of Barangay Banago. He is said to be asymptomatic, and was swabbed July 15, 2021.
Five members of his household also turned out positive with mild symptoms, based on their RT-PCR tests, but none of them was admitted to the hospital, the mayor added in a statement.
The second Delta case was a 32-year-old pregnant woman from Barangay Sum-ag. She was swabbed on July 19, 2021 as requirement for pregnant women at 36 weeks of pregnancy onwards. She has no travel history. She is also asymptomatic. Her husband works at a local hospital. He is also asymptomatic, fully vaccinated with Sinovac. Four other household members were asymptomatic as well.
Leonardia said that upon receiving confirmation from health authorities, he immediately ordered for localized containment measures/surgical lockdown of the residential areas in Sum-ag and Banago, where the two patients and their families reside. Such moves are in full effect while our medical experts and the EOC are further looking into the situation, he added.
These are challenging times, indeed, as COVID-19 spread remains unpredictable as experienced also anywhere in the world, he said as he reassures the public that extensive contact-tracing efforts are being made by our medical team. Re-swabbing or repeat swabbing, as per NIATF and DOH policy, are also being made.
Immediately after news broke out this evening, the EOC and its pool of medical experts and the mayor buckled down to work until late evening to, among others, execute an action plan and identify interventions on how to arrest the problem.
