BACOLOD CITY - Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson has confirmed the local transmission of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Negros Occidental, following the reporting of two confirmed cases infecting an ambulance driver and a rescuer.
“This is an unfortunate incident where a frontliner, in the course of doing his job, got infected," Lacson said.
Fifteen personnel of the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (PDRRMO) are currently quarantined after a 47-year-old male responder from Murcia town, assigned as an ambulance driver tested positive for the virus over the weekend.
According to Zeaphard Gerhart Caelian, chief of the Provincial Disaster Management Program Division chief, the patient was assigned in transporting COVID-19 positive overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from their hotels to the quarantine facilities.
The patient has been quarantined at the Healing Center in E.B. Magalona town, while the other members of the PDRRMO, including Caelian, who came in close contact with him have been quarantined since Friday at the Mambukal Mountain Resort in Murcia town, while waiting for the results of the swab tests.
The driver's family was also subjected to reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests. His wife is a barangay health worker, thus personnel of the Murcia social welfare office were also subjected to rapid tests and five had reactive results.
However, authorities said that the reactive rapid test results were not conclusive for COVID-19. They were waiting for the results of the RT-PCR tests.
Murcia Mayor Gerry Rojas, in an Executive Order on Friday, ordered the lockdown of 120 houses in Purok New Site, Barangay Minoyan, where the ambulance driver was residing.
In Pontevedra town, 20 personnel of their Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (MDRRMO) were also quarantined when their 26-year old male colleague tested positive for the virus.
The said frontliner is a member of the MDRRMO crew who was previously tasked to transport a locally stranded individual (LSI) of the town to the healing center to undergo re-swabbing for RT-PCR test.
All MDRRMO personnel were swabbed and quarantined while waiting for the test results. The patient’s family was also isolated and was swabbed.
Mayor Jose Maria Alonso has also ordered the lockdown of 125 houses at Sitio Colonia, Barangay DSB and Purok Dos, Barangay Poblacion.
The province has breached the 100-mark on COVID-19 cases, with 118 confirmed cases, as of July 7.
Despite the reported local transmission in the province, the governor said that there was no cause for Negrenses to panic.
Lacson said that residents affected by the recent cases should cooperate and stay home. “It will not help if we panic and there is no reason to do so," he added.
No additional COVID-19 cases were reported here and in the province in the past three days.
Meanwhile, Bacolod has a total of 52 COVID-19 confirmed cases as of July 7.