Over 350 close contacts of the COVID-19 patient with the United Kingdom (UK) variant of the coronavirus in Quezon City, including the Grab driver who transported him from Manila, have already been identified by authorities.
Eight of them, according to Mayor Joy Belmonte, are showing symptoms related to COVID-19 and are now under home quarantine.
A total of 105 individuals have also been swabbed, she added.
"However, the results will still come out today. So it's only today that we will know whether these suspects are positive," Belmonte said in a CNN Philippines interview.
"If so and then there's an evidence of clustering , then I will recommend a lockdown in the area," the mayor added, referring to the "depressed community" of Riverside, Barangay Commonwealth, where the patient was quarantined.
The local government said the Grab driver who transported the patient from his first quarantine hotel in Sta. Cruz, Manila to an apartment in Quezon City was already contacted.
Authorities will also trace all his close contacts.
"Hopefully, matapos na natin ang swabbing today (Hopefully we will finish the swabbing today)... Since we have swabbed members of the community, it is a protocol na hindi muna sila dapat lumabas ng bahay (that they don't go outside their homes)," City Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit head Dr. Rolly Cruz said.
A 35-year-old man from Liloan, Cebu, who tested positive for the UK variant of COVID-19, was discovered in Quezon City on Wednesday, Feb. 10.
Citing information from the DOH, the local government said the patient, an Overseas Filipino Worker, returned to the country from Korea in August 2020.
While processing his papers in Manila, he stayed in Parañaque City where he tested positive for COVID-19.
He was first quarantined in a hotel in Manila before his manning agency transferred him via Grab to an apartment the company supposedly owned in Barangay Commonwealth. The Quezon City government said they had no knowledge about the patient's case until the Department of Health informed them about it.