‘COVID-19-free’ refers to cured patient, not locality, Quezon health exec says

LUCENA CITY –– A health official in Quezon province has reminded local executives to be careful in declaring their municipalities “COVID-19-free” even if they have no more active coronavirus disease patients.

“When you say COVID-19-free, it only pertains to patients. That they are COVID-19-free,” Dr. Grace Santiago, head of the Integrated Provincial Health Office (IPHO), insisted on a local television program Thursday morning.

She said: “The DOH (Department of Health) is extremely careful in declaring that a locality is COVID-19-free.”

Santiago maintained that as long as an area has cases of suspected virus carriers or patients classified as “probable” even if all confirmed COVID-19 patients had recovered, the place is still not “COVID-19-free.”

She explained that a locality could only be declared “COVID-19-free” if the entire local population has been tested negative from coronavirus through polymerase chain reaction (PCR)–based test.

But she stressed that such a declaration is good only for the specific day when the test was taken.

Unfortunately, Santiago lamented that the government cannot conduct a mass PCR-based test for all citizens.

On Wednesday, the Quezon provincial information office reported that the last four COVID-19 patients in Lucena City had been cured.

With all 29 patients now fully recovered, city residents declared on social media that the capital city of the province is now “COVID-19-free.”

However, city health authorities are still keeping watch over 98 persons suspected of being infected, and seven probable COVID-19 carriers.

Of 41 localities in the province, only 25 local governments have recorded COVID-19 cases.

Quezon province has 81 cases as of Thursday, with 58 recoveries and eight deaths. The province has only 15 active virus carriers, who are confined in a medical facility.

The province also listed a total of 1,680 suspected virus carriers, but 44 of them had died.

Health authorities recorded over 52 suspected coronavirus carriers, who are confined in different hospitals in Quezon, and 95 others still on home quarantine.

At least 1,489 of the suspected carriers were already out of hospitals or finished home quarantine.

LZB