While waiting for swab results, Mantuyong chief wants close contacts of positive patients isolated

The isolation facility at the Mandaue City Central School. | Photo courtesy of Mandaue City PIO

CEBU CITY, Philippines— The village chief of Mantuyong in Mandaue City is asking city officials to assist them in moving those persons who came in close contact with the latest coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-positive individuals to an isolation facility in the city.

Mantuyong Barangay Captain Juanito Urot, Jr, told CDN Digital that they are looking at moving all those who had close contact with the eight recent cases in their area to the isolation facility at the Mandaue City Central School while waiting for their swab test results.

The eight recent positive individuals in Mantuyong were among the 22 reported by the city on June 1, 2020. All eight are residents from Zone 5.

Read: 14 more inmates among 22 COVID cases in Mandaue

Urot, told CDN Digital through a phone interview that during their barangay meeting on Tuesday morning, June 2, 2020, village officials decided to ask the city to assist and approve their suggestion to move these individuals to their isolation facility to ensure that the virus will not spread within their community.

“Nag contact tracing napud ni sila sa katong walo, kung katong mga na contact trace, ang among suggestion unta sa city i-pull out lang to namo ibutang nato sa City Central School, para katong mga balay diha nga walay labot sa contact tracing maka guwa na intawn kung kailangan,” said Urot.

(The city has already conducted contact tracing to those eight new patients who tested positive from our barangay, and if they are done with the contact tracing we suggest to the city that we pull those individuals out of our barangay and place them in our isolation facility at the City Central School so those households who are not affected by the virus can go out of their houses if the need arises.)

The village chief said the eight new positive patients from their barangay have already been taken to the isolation center on Monday evening.

They have been under home isolation prior to the release of their results earlier Monday night.

“Katong walo diha na gyud to sa ilang mga panimalay wala toy gi ingon nga nag laag2 to sila kay apil man tos area nga gi lockdown,” he added.

(Those eight new cases were already in isolation due to the lockdown in the area.)

Urot said that the individuals who recently tested positive were said to have been in close contact with those earlier positive cases from the barangay.

This is why Urot wants those who came in close contact with these latest positive individuals to be isolated too in order to stop the spread of the virus. The barangay chief said they are awaiting for the approval of the city to when they can  pull out these individuals.

Mandaue City currently has 259 cases of COVID-19 with 16 recoveries and five deaths. Most of these positive cases are inmates of the Mandaue City Jail. /bmjo