Quezon island town records 1st COVID-19 case

LUCENA CITY – Burdeos, a remote island town in Quezon province, recorded its first coronavirus disease (COVID-19) case on Saturday.

The Burdeos COVID-19 Task Force revealed on its Facebook page that the patient, a 69-year-old woman from Barangay (village) Aluyon, came from Biñan City, Laguna and had a “rapid diagnostic test” conducted on September 15 where she tested positive for the virus.

She subsequently submitted herself to the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) laboratory test on September 24. The result also came back positive for COVID-19 on Saturday.

The asymptomatic patient is in stable condition in an isolation facility.

Six more individuals from the municipality who also underwent RT-PCR test are still waiting for the test results.

The local government has been conducting aggressive contact tracing to prevent the spread of the virus.

Authorities have also temporarily stopped the return of islanders tagged as “locally stranded individuals” to prevent the entry of possible virus carriers.

Burdeos and two other municipalities — Polillo and Panukulan — are located on Polillo Island off the Pacific Ocean in the northern part of the province.

Out of 41 municipalities in Quezon, only the town of San Andres at the Bondoc Peninsula remain COVID-19-free since the pandemic erupted in the country in March.

Meanwhile, an estimated 100 health and medical workers, as well as office staff in different hospitals in the province, have contracted COVID-19.

Dr. Rolando Padre, director of the provincial government-run Quezon Medical Center (QMC) located in this city, said only 52 of those who tested positive belong to their hospital.

At least 44 QMC health and medical workers and office staff have fully recovered. “The eight others still remain in confinement,” Padre said.

Of those who contracted COVID-19 at QMC, 22 are doctors, 13 are nurses, eight are nursing aides, and one is a midwife; the rest are office staff, security guard, and utility worker.

Padre said one doctor from the province who was not from QMC also died from COVID-19.

Quezon province, which is under the most relaxed modified general community quarantine status, recorded 1,823 COVID-19 cases with the surge of 44 new confirmed virus carriers as of Saturday afternoon.

The COVID-19 death toll in Quezon is at 60.

The province logged a total of 1,334 recoveries and still has 429 active virus carriers.

JE