CITY OF CALAPAN – Twenty-one employees of the municipal government of San Jose in Occidental Mindoro tested positive for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), according to the local government in a report on Saturday evening.
The San Jose Municipal Health Office said the employees were the 21st to 41st COVID-19 cases in town who underwent the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test and received results from the Philippine Red Cross.
The patients, aged 25 to 50 years old, were 12 women and nine men. They are now in quarantine.
They all had no travel history but had been exposed to a COVID-19 positive case, the report said.
A majority of them are currently asymptomatic while a few experienced mild symptoms before they were swabbed for testing.
Contact tracing is now being undertaken, the local government said.
San Jose Mayor Romulo Festin had placed the local government offices on lockdown from September 16 to 18 for disinfection after two employees tested positive for COVID-19 on September 14.
As of 7:39 p.m. of Sept. 19, Occidental Mindoro has 84 COVID-19 infections, with 25 active cases, 56 recoveries, and three deaths.