Virus-hit frontliner in Quezon protects family, village by not returning home
LUCENA CITY – The responsible steps taken by a health worker in Gumaca town in Quezon province who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19 has prevented the possible spread of the coronavirus in the locality.
“With what he did, he is a model for all front-liners and other workers,” Gumaca Mayor Webster Letargo said in a phone interview Saturday.
The patient is working as an ophthalmic assistant at the Magsaysay Memorial District Hospital in Gumaca’s neighboring town of Lopez, according to Letargo.
When the worker from Barangay Buensuceso felt the symptoms associated with COVID-19, he decided not to return home and instead immediately asked to be examined at the hospital where he is working.
He also submitted himself to a real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test and patiently waited for the result that turned out positive.
He was listed on Friday (July 17) as the second COVID-19 case in Gumaca. The first case in Gumaca, which was recorded on May 5, already recovered from the disease.
Letargo immediately placed the village on lockdown as local authorities started contact tracing. The patient’s mother, wife, and three children, who were immediately isolated, later tested negative for the virus.
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