Covid-19 cases in Passi, Iloilo rise to 220 — mayor

Approximate 3D representation of the coronavirus. FILE IMAGE

MANILA, Philippines — The number of Covid-19 cases in Passi, Iloilo rose to 220, its mayor said Saturday, a day after he announced that the city will be under a two-week enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) due to the rising number of infections.

“As of today, Jan. 30, we have now 220 cases from 166,” Mayor Stephen Palmares said during the Laging Handa online press briefing.

“Right now, [continuous] yung ating contact tracing yung ginagawa, at tsaka we’re trying to put everything in its proper perspective at tsaka nilagay natin yung entire city sa enhanced community quarantine,” he added.

(Right now, we are doing contact tracing, as well as we’re trying to put things into their proper perspective and putting the entire city under enhanced community quarantine.)

Previously, Palmares said that Passi City will be under ECQ from 6 a.m. of Jan. 28 until 12 m.n. of Feb. 11 as most Covid-19 cases in the area were market vendors.

According to the mayor, the LGU found that a vendor from the public market was the source of transmission.

“While we were conducting mass testing, may nakita kaming positive na employee na may isang stall dun sa Passi public market,” he said.

(While we were conducting mass testing, we found out that an employee who had a stall at the Passi public market tested positive.)

“So nung nag-contact tracing kami, may na-contract siya na pitong market vendors na nag-positive,” he added.

(So when we did contact tracing, he already contracted seven vendors who were positive for Covid-19.)

Palmares said that the public market has been placed under lockdown since Tuesday, and that all of its 650 vendors were swabbed for testing.

JPV