15 new COVID-19 cases in Davao City 3 days after lifting of ECQ

DAVAO CITY –– A batch of 15 residents tested positive for COVID-19 three days after the enhanced community quarantine was lifted in the city.

The Department of Health (DOH) in Davao region posted in its bulletin on Monday evening that the latest confirmed cases bring the total number of cases in the city to 193 with 22 reported deaths.

All the newly confirmed patients, who are residents of the densely populated Barangay 23-C, have mild or no symptoms.

In April this year, Puroks 3, 4, and 7 of Barangay 23-C were placed under lockdown after COVID-19 cases were traced to these locations.

Health workers also shuttled a group of 65 residents from the village to a COVID facility manned by the city for quarantine and monitoring last month.

Mayor Sara Duterte said this was to protect the patients and their families and to prevent the disease from further spreading.

“We monitored them for more than 14 days. We also subjected them to tests,” Duterte said.

Duterte said the infection of the recent cases happened mostly within the household.

“There are patients who infected housemates. It is important that we prevent their housemates from leaving their homes until they are cleared,” Duterte said.

The local government has adopted the new protocol, which requires healthcare workers to take swab tests of all members of a household with a COVID-19 positive case. Random tests are also being conducted in identified high-risk areas.

In the case of Barangay 23-C, the latest batch of confirmed cases were members of an extended family that reside in a congested area.

The local government is trying to ramp up the city’s testing capacity by assisting the applications of the City Health Office and private laboratories to open additional COVID-19 testing facilities.

LZB