7 members of nurse’s family in Laguna catch COVID-19

SAN PEDRO CITY –– Seven members of a family in Biñan City, Laguna have tested positive for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), prompting the city government to lock down a residential compound of at least six households on Tuesday.

The fresh cases, whose test results by real-time polymerase chain reaction came out on June 1, made up the first cluster infection in the city, according to health surveillance officer Hans Kristian Lorenzana.

“The cases we’ve been getting are normally sporadic, meaning (the patients) are not related to one another. This is the first time an entire family tested positive (for the virus),” he said.

City mayor Walfredo Dimaguila Jr. ordered contact tracing and movement restriction in the neighborhood in Honoria Subdivision in Barangay Platero, even as the rest of Laguna transitions to a more relaxed quarantine rule starting this month.

Lorenzana said the family members are being treated and monitored in two different hospitals even as none of them has shown severe symptoms of the disease.

Nurse’s family

According to the health office, the father, a 59-year-old market fish vendor, was the first one tested after showing symptoms since May 18.

As part of contact tracing, the rest of the family members were also tested, and they turned out to have contracted the virus.

But what is even more surprising, Lorenzana said, is that the family’s son, a hospital nurse, is the only one of them who tested negative for the virus.

The rest of the family members are aged 57, 29, 24, 21, and children aged 5 and 3.

“When we talked to the hospital (where the nurse son works), he has rarely come home because of his (hospital) duty and therefore rarely interacted with his family (since the outbreak),” Lorenzana said.

The Department of Health has recorded 1,554 cases in Calabarzon as of June 1, of which 449 are traced to Laguna.

LZB