Two residents of Riverside, Barangay Commonwealth in Quezon City, who live within the 50-meter radius from where an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) with the United Kingdom (variant) of COVID-19 was quarantined, have also tested positive for the virus, the Quezon City government announced Monday night.
According to the local government, the new patients are a 36-year-old male resident and a 44-year-old female resident. They are asymptomatic.
Their close contacts were also already tested for COVID-19 and they yielded negative results, the local government added.
This came after the City's Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit (CESU) conducted a massive contact tracing and COVID-19 testing of at least 206 residents of the area after a 35-year-old patient was quarantined there without the local government's knowledge. It was also alleged that the latter breached quarantine protocols.
The new COVID-19 patients were already brought to the city's isolation facility while their samples were sent to the Philippine Genome Center for genome sequencing, according to the local government.
“Kasabay nito, magsasagawa ang CESU ng karagdagang contact tracing sa dalawang positive cases. Inirerekomenda rin ng CESU na tapusin ang 14-day quarantine ng mga kasama sa bahay ng dalawang nagpositibo (CESU will conduct additional tracing of the two new patients' close contacts. CESU also recommended to their close contacts to undergo quarantine for 14-days).”
UK variant patient close contacts
On the other hand, the local government said it already traced and tested for COVID-19 a total of 196 individuals who got in close contact with the UK variant patient. These included the Grab driver who transported him from his first quarantine hotel in Manila, six hotel personnel, and his roommate inside the Quezon City apartment.
His close contacts also included a Quezon City resident who availed of the patient's welding service while he was positive of COVID-19.
However, the local government said that they all tested negative for COVID-19.