BY CARLA P. GOMEZ
So far, 220 Bacolod residents and 48 from Negros Occidental who participated in the Timeout Weekend mass testing were found positive for COVID-19, Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz said last night.
During the Timeout Weekend, swab specimens were taken from 6,294 persons with 4,384 from Bacolod City, Talisay City – 725, Silay City – 431, Bago City – 318, and Murcia – 436 for Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction tests for COVID-19.
Diaz said results from the first batch of specimens sent to the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center laboratory in Cebu showed that, of the 1,159 from Bacolod City, 163 or 14 percent tested positive.
There were still 441 Bacolod specimens that were up for testing in Cebu last night, he said.
Of the 105 who tested positive at the Teresita L. Jalandoni Provincial Hospital in Silay City, 57 were from Bacolod City and the rest from Negros Occidental, he added.
The Department of Health in Western Visayas, in its regular COVID-19 bulletin yesterday, said there were 47 new positive cases in Negros Occidental and 29 in Bacolod City.
It also reported that 22 COVID-19 positive patients in Negros Occidental have recovered and 29 in Bacolod City.
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana has granted the request of Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson for a moratorium on inbound air and sea travel to Negros Occidental, Diaz said.
Lorenzana, chairman of the National Task Force on COVID-19, approved the request for a moratorium from September 1 to 7.
All quarantine facilities of Negros Occidental will be used to accommodate the influx of positive cases as a result of the Timeout Weekend mass testing for COVID-19 conducted in Talisay, Silay and Bago cities and Murcia town, Lacson said in his request.
Lacson said because of that, there will be no adequate quarantine facilities ready to hold returning Negrense overseas Filipino workers and locally stranded individuals.*CPG
