Marikina evacuee who tested positive for COVID-19 came from hospital — mayor

MANILA, Philippines — A typhoon evacuee in Marikina who tested positive for coronavirus and appeared to have been prematurely discharged from a hospital, caused serious concerns for Marikina local officials after he was found to have mingled with other typhoon evacuees.

Mayor Marcelino Teodoro said in an interview with ABS-CBN’s Teleradyo that the patient was the first typhoon evacuee in the city to test positive for COVID-19. He did not specify the hospital where the patient came from.

“Bigyan ko lang diin, ‘yung unang kaso namin nakakabahala dahil galing ng ospital ‘yung isa. Senior citizen, 68 years old. Kaya pinatawag namin ngayon ‘yung atensyon ng ospital para macorrect ‘yung policy nila,” he said.

(I will just stress that the situation for one of the patients is alarming. He is a 68-year-old senior citizen. We called the attention of the hospital to correct their policy.)

“Nakalabas ‘yung tao ng may COVID, doon sa hospital. Maaaring wala na syang sakit o wala syang symptoms pero ang nagiging problema natin ay maaari syang makahawa kaya mabuti na lang nadetect natin agad ‘yun sa evacuation center dahil may mga health declaration tayong hinihingi,” he added.

(He was able to go out with COVID. Maybe he is not sick anymore or does not have symptoms, but the problem here is he might infect others. That’s why it is good that we were able to immediately detect it in the evacuation center after we asked for a health status declaration.)

Teodoro earlier said that the patient has co-morbidities.

The patient is among the five confirmed cases among typhoon evacuees in the city, according to the mayor. Teodoro said they came from separate evacuation centers and that their close contacts have tested negative for COVID-19.

The mayor also said that the five cases of infection in evacuation centers were detected because of the “surveillance testing” being conducted by the city government for typhoon evacuees.

There are 49 evacuation centers in the city with around 10,400 families, according to Teodoro.

EDV