COVID-19 cases at PMA: Cadets, waiters, cooks

TRAINING GROUND The Philippine Military Academy (PMA) in Baguio City is the country’s premier military training institution that prepares cadets for leadership roles in the military. Despite a lockdown on the Fort del Pilar campus, COVID-19 cases emerged in December following tests on cadets and other people staying and working in the academy. —EV ESPIRITU

BAGUIO CITY, Benguet, Philippines — Fifty-three of the 72 COVID-19 patients being treated inside the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) here are cadets, an official of the Department of Health (DOH) said on Wednesday.

Dr. Ruby Constantino, the DOH director for the Cordillera, said three cooks and 16 waiters at the academy’s mess hall also contracted the virus, but more could be afflicted.

At a press briefing, Constantino said the outbreak was discovered after expanded tests for COVID-19 were carried out at the PMA last month.

Maj. Gen. Edgard Arevalo, spokesperson for the Armed Forces of the Philippines, on Tuesday said the source of transmission at the academy was traced to food handlers.

Vivencio Dizon, president of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority and the country’s COVID-19 testing czar, had requested at least 1,000 more reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests for the patients’ close contacts inside Fort del Pilar, where the military training school is located, Constantino said.

She said the DOH had difficulty securing details of the outbreak from the PMA, which had yet to disclose where their patients had been isolated.

Under the department’s guidelines, the PMA could have availed itself of isolation units operated by the city government, such as Teachers’ Camp or the ward at Santo Niño Hospital in the city center, she said.

MEAL TIME In this file photo, Philippine Military Academy cadets and alumni gather at the mess hall for a program and ameal. —EVESPIRITU

Government doctors have stepped up contact tracing efforts because some soldiers and teachers at the academy were living elsewhere in the city while others staying on campus had gone home during the holidays.

So far, the city health office had recorded 4,001 COVID-19 cases in Baguio as of Jan. 5.Possible breaches

Other activities inside the PMA, such as construction work, were also being checked for possible breaches in sanitation and distancing protocols, the Inquirer learned.

Although the PMA managed to protect its cadets from the virus by enforcing a hard lockdown since February last year, it submitted to expanded RT-PCR tests only in December.

During the tests conducted from Dec. 16 to Dec. 18, 2020, three out of 395 people staying in the PMA tested positive for the virus, according to laboratory results. The tests were part of an initiative to determine the rate of transmissions in Baguio and its neighboring towns in Benguet.

On Dec. 22, 2020, the PMA requested further tests, leading to the discovery of more carriers inside the academy, Constantino said.

Maj. Cheryl Tindog, the PMA spokesperson, said all patients at the academy had not manifested symptoms of COVID-19.

—Vincent Cabreza