Lubang Island in Occidental Mindoro reports 1st COVID-19 case

CITY OF CALAPAN – Fear and worry gripped residents of the island town of Lubang in Occidental Mindoro after a 25-year-old detainee became  its first coronavirus disease  2019 (COVID-19) patient. Wilfredo Bleza, municipal administrator, in an exchange of messages with the Inquirer Saturday morning said with the first case, they local government has “immediately activated the contact tracing team to isolate the first degree contacts of the patient and reinstallation of barangay quarantine checkpoints”. Teresa Pagilagan, municipal health officer, said the patient is a detainee from Barangay Maliig. “(He has) no history of travel outside the municipality and no known exposure to any confirmed case of COVID-19 and had remained symptomatic,” Pagilagan said. The provincial government said this is the 55th COVID-19 case. The patient was detained at Lubang police station before he was transferred to Mamburao police station in the mainland on August 19. He underwent the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) swab test as a protocol for his transfer on August 17.  The result was released by the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) on August 21.

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