CITY OF CALAPAN—The local government recorded the 25th case of COVID-19 in the province, that of a resident who had returned after being stranded in Cavite province, a coronavirus hot spot.
Gov. Humerlito Dolor on Thursday (June 11) evening said 33 coronavirus tests had been conducted in the Oriental Mindoro Provincial Hospital (OMPH) on the second day of the hospital’s operation as a coronavirus testing facility.
At least 32 of the 33 tests yielded negative results while one turned out to be the province’s 25th COVID-19 case.
The patient is a 58-year-old man from the village of Villareal in Socorro town who had been stranded in Bacoor town in Cavite, one of the places with very high coronavirus infections.
He arrived at the Calapan port on June 1 and was allowed to proceed with his travel because he did not show any symptoms.
But after a few days, the returning Mindoro resident developed “on and off fever, cough” and loose bowel movement, which are symptoms of COVID-19, according to the governor.
The symptoms were persistent and the man had difficulty in breathing, which prompted authorities to transfer him to a hospital in this city on June 9.
The chief of the hospital said the patient was “unstable with persistent difficulty of breathing and is scheduled for possible intubation,” or the process of inserting a tube connected to a ventilator into the patient’s throat, a very painful procedure.
Citing a report by the Department of Health (DOH), Dolor said the OMPH laboratory was the first provincial hospital in the country that got a license to operate as a coronavirus testing facility.
He said that after four months since he had been giving updates on COVID-19 test results, with the OMPH testing center on its second day of operation on June 11, there will now be real time reporting of COVID-19 test results.
Out of 25 COVID-19 cases recorded in Oriental Mindoro, only three are active. Twenty had recovered and two died.