5 cases added to Zambo’s COVID-19 tally

ZAMBOANGA CITY—The city’s tally of COVID-19 cases has grown to 190 with five new cases added.

Sheila Covarrubias, information officer of the Zamboanga City Task Force Against COVID-19, said three of the infected persons were individuals stranded in virus hot spots Cebu and Manila who just came home, and two were due to local transmission.

Three of the patients are isolated at the Ateneo de Zamboanga University-Lantaka quarantine facility while two are confined in a COVID-19 referral hospital.

One case of local transmission is that of a 21-year-old male from the village of Baliwasan, who has not shown any symptom.

He was a close contact of an 18-year-old student who was infected with COVID-19 and the student’s mother, also virus-infected. The 18-year-old student died last May 25.

Another local transmission is that of a 68-year-old male from the village of Talon-Talon. Authorities said he had no symptoms but was diagnosed to have pneumonia, one of the most deadliest effect of COVID-19.

An imported case is that of a 27-year-old male overseas Filipino worker who flew from virus hot spot Manila to Laguindingan Airport in Misamis Oriental on June 6. He travelled by land to the city, and was swabbed on June 13.

Another is a 23-year-old student who arrived from Cebu, another virus hot spot, on June 10 aboard a naval ship. He was tested on June 14 after showing symptoms of the disease.

Still another imported case is a 69-year-old woman who arrived from Cebu on May 31 on board a government mercy flight. Although without symptoms, she was tested on June 10, a few days before her 14-day quarantine ended.

Covarrubias said local health workers are tracing the patients’ close contacts.

The number of cases attributed to local transmission has now swelled to 13, although 10 are now listed as recoveries. The number of cases among returnees has also risen to six.

The bulk of the city’s cases are in the city jail.

The national government has placed the city on general community quarantine (GCQ) because of the continued increase in number of cases.

At least 24 inmates, who had been given release orders, were found positive for SARS Cov2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

Covarrubias said on Thursday that the 24 inmates were added to the city’s list of patients as of Wednesday (June 17), which made the city’s tally at that time 183.

The inmates, Covarrubias said, were in the third batch of those that got release orders but are still in the city jail, Zamboanga City Reformatory Center.

A total of 216 inmates were in the third batch of inmates ordered released and who had been swabbed prior to their release. At least 24 were positive, 173 were negative and 19 were still awaiting test results.

Authorities in mid-April started to reduce jail population to decongest the 600 square meter facility which houses more than 3,000 inmates.

In the first batch of 60 freed inmates, 48 tested positive for coronavirus. The second batch of 44 inmates had 11 infections. The two batches had been released and sent to different quarantine facilities at the villages of Cabatangan and San Ramon.

The number of recoveries in the city had increased to 138, leaving 41 active cases out of 183 confirmed coronavirus infections.

Edited by TSB