New DOH-6 Covid-19 tally scheme mollifies Guimaras

By Jennifer P. Rendon 

All’s well that ends well.

The Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Guimaras will no longer pass a resolution asking the Department of Health Western Visayas Center for Health Development 6 (DOH-CHD-6) to explain its Health Bulletin No. 37 issued 1:00 p.m. of May 2, 2020.

The said health advisory became controversial because of the inclusion of a repatriated overseas Filipino (OFW) case in the province’s coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) count.

In effect, the bulletin stained the province’s COVID-free status.

The Guimaras SP believed that it’s moot and academic now since the DOH-CHD6 already rectified its succeeding advisory.

The DOH-CHD-6 Health Bulletin No. 38 issued evening of May 3 included a separate table for repatriated OFW who were confirmed positive for COVID-19.

Minutes after the bulletin was released, Vice Governor John Edward Gando, who was earlier vocal about his disgust of lumping a repatriated OFW in the province’s COVID-19 tally, acknowledged and sincerely thanked the DOH “for making an accurate, fair and factual reporting.”

With the new tally, “Guimaras remains a COVID-free province with zero case (based on the latest over all table) as we pray for the soonest recovery of our infected repatriate resident.”

Gando said they are all for rectification of the bulletin. As it was already done, “we think there’s no need for a resolution.

He said they could now look forward to an executive committee meeting on their course of actions to help Guimaras’ repatriated OFWs.

Over the weekend, Gando slammed the DOH count which lumped WV Patient No. 72, a 27-year-old male resident of Buenavista, Guimaras, in the province’s COVID tally.

The OFW was one of the 175 repatriated OFWs from Panay Island who arrived in Iloilo City on April 29.

Labeling him as Guimaras’ first case “is stupidity at its finest,” Gando said in a Facebook post.

“Very clearly, it is established that WV patient #72, an OFW who was repatriated back to Iloilo City courtesy of OWWA, was infected somewhere else and not in the province of Guimaras.”

He also noted that the patient has not set foot on the province from the time he was repatriated back to Iloilo City.

He then called for the DOH to lay down their basis why the agency included a repatriated OFW as a COVID-19 case of Guimaras.