2 COVID carriers caught entering Bacolod with tampered swab test results

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines —Two women who tested positive for COVID-19 had tampered with their swab test results in order to board a ship from Manila to Bacolod City.

According to Zeaphard Caelian, head of the Negros Occidental Provincial Incident Management Team, the two women arrived on a 2GO vessel at the Bacolod Real Estate Development Corp. port on Wednesday night and were caught with the tampered swab test results.

Based on the investigation, the two women, whose identities were withheld, were detected to have COVID-19 but added the word “not” to make it appear that they had negative results.

But when the quick response codes of their test results were scanned, it was discovered that they had tested positive for the virus, Caelian said.

The two, who were headed for Cauayan town, were taken to the healing center in Silay City where would they undergo quarantine.

Caelian said the incident was recorded in a police blotter and forwarded to the Provincial Legal Office for the proper legal action that would be taken against them.

The Department of Health (DOH) has been helping boost the vaccination drives in 18 local governments in Negros Occidental that have yet to hit 50 percent of their inoculation target, said Dr. Helen Tobias, DOH Western Visayas assistant director.

Tobias said her teams had so far visited 13 of these localities to help them ramp up their vaccination coverage by providing them with about 50 additional vaccinators, 31 encoders and technical assistance.

Tobias said Negros Occidental, which has 31 local governments, had a much larger population than other provinces in Western Visayas.

—CARLA P. GOMEZ INQ