BAGUIO CITY– The mayor of the popular tourist town of Sagada in the Mountain Province has contracted COVID-19.
Sagada Mayor James Pooten Jr. said his test result was released on Friday (March 26). The mayor said he is asymptomatic and has been advised by the municipal health office to quarantine.
“Rest assured, I will continue to exercise my duties remotely in the best possible way,” he said in a social media post.
“I hope to see much fewer members of our communities in this situation,” Pooten added after urging residents to practice all public health protocols.
As of March 26, Sagada had a total of 229 COVID-19 infections since the pandemic began last year, of which 148 are active cases, according to the Mountain Province Health Office. On the same day, a 77-year old woman died at the town’s St. Theodore’s Hospital raising the town’s fatalities to 4.
Mountain Province recorded 91 new cases on Friday, elevating its total infections to 2,377. It hosted most of the 41 Cordillera patients who acquired the more contagious United Kingdom variant of the disease.