The City Health Services Office (CHSO) reported fifty eight barangays in the city were registered confirmed Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases during the prevalence of the community quarantine.
Dr. Donnabel Tubera-Panes, head of the CHSO’s infectious disease cluster, disclosed that among the city’s barangays that registered COVID-19 cases, Camp 7, Middle Quezon Hill, Bakakeng Central, Guisad Central, Irisan, New Lucban, and San Vicente recorded the most number of cases.
She claimed that of the city’s first 100 COVID-19 cases, 68 percent had history of travel while 32 percent are no history of travel or close contacts of the patients.
Further, she reported that 56 percent of the confirmed patients were asymptomatic, 41 percent displayed mild to moderate symptoms, 2 percent died while 1 percent was classified to be severe but was able to fully recover from the deadly virus after a long period of medication in one of the city’s health facilities.
The CHSO official added 17 percent of the cases were senior citizens, 5 percent were below 18 years old while the rest fall under the different age categories.
According to her, 53 percent of the city’s COVID-19 cases are females while 47 percent are males from the affected barangays.
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The medical officer reiterated the previous appeal of Mayor Benjamin B. Magalong for residents experiencing flu-like symptoms to immediately visit the nearest district health center for the appropriate medical diagnosis of their illnesses or for them to be referred for swabbing if they possess the COVID-19 symptoms.
Panes asserted residents should heed the advise of their doctors and for them to trust their doctors as they know the needed medication for their illnesses, especially the deadly virus which has impacted the country.
She attributed the recent increase in the number of cases in the city to the aggressive expanded targeted testing undertaken by the city government upon orders of Mayor Magalong where the previous 10 to 50 tests per day drastically increased to 300 to 800 tests per day.
However, she claimed the city government is now managing the conduct of the tests to the frontliners, vulnerable and marginalized sectors, to make do with the limited viral transport media (VTM) that had been given to the city by the health department and the national inter-agency task force for the management of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases.
Earlier, the city was given some 100,000 VTM kits shared with the other Cordillera local government units to help improve testing capacities of the different provinces that also need the supply of test kits to help ascertain the percentage of the population infected by the deadly virus.
Based on the latest figures from the CSHO, the city has only 22,000 VTMs for the ongoing aggressive testing of the close contacts of confirmed cases in the city as part of the efforts to prevent the rapid spread of the virus in densely populated places.
By Dexter A. See
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