Entire village in Lanao Norte on lockdown after resident tests positive for COVID-19

ILIGAN CITY—The mayor of Tubod, the capital town of Lanao del Norte, placed an interior village on lockdown after a senior citizen there tested positive for COVID-19.

Mayor Leonio Bagol told the Inquirer he ordered a lockdown on Malingao, a village some 12 kilometers south of Tubod, to keep the people there from possibly transmitting the disease.

The lockdown started last Sunday (March 29) and would end on April 7.

Residents had been ordered to stay at home, said the mayor, who also placed his entire family on home quarantine because of possible exposure to the virus that causes COVID-19.

“All entry and exit points to other barangays are closely guarded,” he said.

Residents of other villages would be allowed to go out but only if they have quarantine passes and on condition that they won’t pass by Malingao.

The mayor ordered every household in Malingao to place a chair in front of the gates of their houses for a municipal team to leave food on the chairs.

Bagol said the patient who had tested positive was a 67-year old man who had been to Davao City early this month for a cockfighting derby which featured millions of pesos in prizes. The Davao City government had been trying to trace those who have been to the derby which could be considered a cluster, or a place with multiple infections.

The patient showed COVID-19 symptoms fever, cough, sore throat, colds and fatigue for seven days before he was brought to the Northern Mindanao Medical Center last March 26.

The Department of Health said the patient was also suffering from hypertension, pneumonia and had lung cancer, which made him highly vulnerable to COVID-19.

Edited by TSB