3 new COVID-19 cases reported in Bicol 3 days before transitioning to MGCQ

LEGAZPI CITY –– Three days before being placed under modified general community quarantine (MGCQ), three new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) were reported in Bicol.

Two of the new cases are from Labo town in Camarines Norte, while the other is from Legazpi City in Albay. This raised the total number of confirmed COVID-19 patients in the Bicol region to 72, the Department of Health (DOH) reported on Friday morning.

Under the Inter-Agency Task Force’s Resolution No. 40, Camarines Norte province and Legazpi City will be under MGCQ starting June 1 until 15. Albay, where Legazpi City is located, however, will remain under general community quarantine.

The patients from Labo were a 10-year-old girl and a 53-year-old woman who both had close contact with a patient, who died from coronavirus-related complications on May 15.

Both patients were asymptomatic when swabbed for testing. According to DOH, they are both at the town’s quarantine facility.

Meanwhile, the patient from Legazpi City, an asymptomatic 57-year-old man, had a history of travel from Libmanan town in Camarines Sur. Libmanan does not have any known COVID-19 patient as of this writing.

Dr. Antonio Ludovice of Albay’s Provincial Health Office said the patient arrived on May 15 at the Tula-Tula rehab in Ligao City.

“Those who traveled by land, the locally stranded individuals, and returning overseas Filipino workers are profiled at the rehab center in Tula-Tula in Ligao City,” Ludovice told Inquirer.

The patient is now in a quarantine facility in Legazpi City, he said.

The new cases were results of the tests done at the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine (RITM), according to the DOH.

Swab specimens from Bicol were brought to RITM after the Bicol Regional Diagnostic and Reference Laboratory, a COVID-19 testing lab in Legazpi City, was damaged by Typhoon “Ambo.”

LZB