COVID-19 spike in Ilocos linked to gathering of gov’t workers in Metro Manila office
LAOAG CITY—A gathering held at a government office in Metro Manila has led to a spike in cases of COVID-19 in some Ilocos provinces in the past weeks, health officials said on Tuesday. In a statement, Ilocos Sur Gov. Ryan Singson said COVID-19 cases in the province started to increase after some employees of the National Tobacco Administration (NTA) in Candon City attended a gathering in the agency’s office in Quezon City on March 5.
The gathering, the NTA’s First Quarter Convocation, was attended by officials and employees from the central office and some branch managers from the provinces.
“The employees had a break from work and enjoyed camaraderie for a half-day celebration of fellowship,” according to the NTA central office in a Facebook post on March 6.
One of the highlights of the assembly, which was preceded by a thanksgiving Mass, was the birthday celebration of Robert Seares, the NTA administrator and chief executive officer, it added. According to Singson, one of the NTA employees who attended the event later tested positive for COVID-19.The patient had then infected a coworker, a 58-year-old woman from Sta. Lucia town, who also turned out to be a carrier of the British variant of COVID-19, the first in the province.
No travel history
The woman had no any prior travels outside Ilocos Sur, Singson said. The test result showing the woman was infected by the variant was released only on April 12.
The Department of Health confirmed that she was the first in Ilocos Sur to have acquired the more contagious variant of the virus, also called B.1.1.7 SARS-Cov-2, which originated from the United Kingdom.
In Ilocos Norte, one of three employees of the NTA in Batac City who attended the event had tested positive for COVID-19 on March 12.
The 64-year-old woman was exposed to a positive case in Quezon City, local health data showed. On March 14, at least 11 contacts of the infected woman from Ilocos Norte, most of them from the NTA in Batac City, had also tested positive for the virus.
Ten of the close contacts had recovered from the disease except for one who died on March 22 due to COVID-19 complications.
Despite strict health protocols in place, it was not immediately known why the NTA gathering had to be held last month.
Ilocos Sur earlier imposed an “emergency shielding,” which banned the entry of people from Metro Manila and the provinces of Bulacan, Rizal, Cavite and Laguna and other COVID-19 high-risk areas across the country.
Singson also placed at least 13 towns and cities, including the capital Vigan, on a stricter modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) from April 7 to April 21 to curb the sudden increase in cases.
In Tuguegarao City, the local government on Tuesday began imposing more relaxed restrictions as it reverted to less restrictive MECQ for seven days.
Mayor Jefferson Soriano said the regional Inter-Agency Task Force on COVID-19 had granted the request of the city government not to extend its 14-day enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) provided it would implement measures to curb the growing cases of COVID-19.
“We cannot forever be under ECQ. We must revive our economy,” Soriano said.
