COVID-19 testing in Tarlac town shows 6 positive so far for coronavirus

BAMBAN, TARLAC — Six out of 45 residents, who were tested for coronavirus last Monday (April 20) in Concepcion town, were positive for the virus, according to Concepcion Mayor Andres Lacson.

They were among residents who may have had contact with the town’s first coronavirus carrier, who was the wife of a man being suspected of having the virus that causes COVID-19.

The first carrier, branded as TP 218, is a 64-year-old woman. She and her husband had been exposed to another carrier, a child who had returned from Singapore, which is now experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases.

The 45 residents of Concepcion were the first batch of the COVID-19 patient’s contacts. Tests would be made on 200 more residents.

The six, who tested positive, would be branded as probable carriers because results of the tests still have to be validated by another set of tests that would be done at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, according to Dr. Jeanette Lazatin, Tarlac health officer.

Concepcion on Tuesday (April 21) went on a 24-hour lockdown to allow health crews to disinfect and sanitize facilities and establishments which had been visited by the 64-year-old woman carrier.

Starting on Wednesday (April 22), the local government would enforce a stricter enhanced community quarantine.

The mayor said residents who would be allowed to leave their homes are only those that he had ordered fetched for testing “and those who need to be isolated.”

Four of the patients, who tested positive, are employees of the municipal government. Their predicament delayed the distribution of cash aid from the national government’s Social Amelioration Program. Only two villages had received the aid.

The local government of Concepcion is planning to use an idle resort as a quarantine site in addition to the Miss Tee Hotel which has 21 rooms and where 16 probable carriers had been quarantined.

Edited by TSB