BY ADRIAN P. NEMES III
Emergency Operations Center deputy director for medical and data analysis, Dr. Chris Sorongon, said yesterday that 13 individuals, including four women who earlier tested for the Delta variant of Covid-19, yielded negative, based on the results of their re-swabs.
Sorongon said they continue to submit specimens to the Philippine Genome Center daily for the identification of the variants.
Earlier, 166 specimens taken from July 9 to August 9, and another 70 samples after that have been submitted to the PGC, and some of the results have already been released.
Sorongon said those who tested positive but with low cycle threshold (CT) were already considered “Delta cases” because the transmission is swift. He again reminded the public to be vigilant and continue to observe the health protocols.
EOC executive director Em Ang said the specimens taken from the 19 members of a family, who were extracted from their home in Brgy. Singcang-Airport recently, had been sent to PGC for genome sequencing while a surgical lockdown of the residential area was enforced.
Ang said they were tested Friday and Saturday when two household members initially showed symptoms of the disease, so after contact tracing, the other relatives living in the compound were also swabbed.
She said the results came back last night with 19 found positive for Covid, with some having high viral load of CT values of 14-22.
Ang said this new high infection rate can trigger another surge, adding that clusters of cases like this can quickly lead to bigger outbreaks, “making it even more necessary for us to strictly follow health protocols.”
92% RECOVERY
As of Monday, the Covid recovery rate in Bacolod City was at 92.41 percent, following the recuperation of 15,337 individuals out of 16,596 who have tested positive of the disease since the pandemic started, EOC record showed.
It added that Bacolod recorded a 2.3 percent casualty rate after 392 residents have succumbed to the disease.
The EOC also reported that 234,370 doses of vaccines have been administered, so far, with 94,384 residents fully inoculated while 163,823 have received the first dose.
Bacolod also opened its 24-hour vaccination drive in an effort to vaccinate more individuals to achieve a 70 percent herd immunity faster.*
