Tighter safety procedures up after COVID infects frontliner

By Dolly Yasa

 

BACOLOD City – Negros Occidental Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz said tighter safety procedures, especially on the wearing of personal protective equipment (PPE), will be implemented.

This, after a driver of an ambulance in charge of transporting COVID-19 positive overseas Filipino workers from their hotels to provincial quarantine facilities tested positive for the virus.

The 47-year-old driver from Murcia town has been tagged as Negros Occidental COVID-19 Patient No. 105.

Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson was surprised how the driver was infected when he was wearing a PPE.

Lacson said it is the first local transmission in the province.

The 14 other members of the Emergency Response Unit of the Negros Occidental Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office (PDRRMO) have been quarantined.

Earlier Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Office head Zeaphard Caelian subjected all 15 members of the Emergency Response Unit for COVID-19 test and only the ambulance driver was positive.

The family members of the driver will be swabbed using the Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) test for COVID-19, Diaz said.

Meanwhile Murcia Mayor Victor Gerardo Rojas placed Barangay Minoyan under Enhanced Community Quarantine.

The mayor said Purok New Site in Barangay Minoyan is the address of the infected ambulance driver.

Based on tracing procedures, the ambulance driver went home to Purok New Site on June 29 and returned to Bacolod City on July 1.

Rojas said they are conducting contact tracing for testing and isolation of persons who were exposed to the driver.

Residents are not allowed to leave their residences and their necessities will be provided by the municipal government, the mayor said. Only authorized persons will be allowed to go out.

Curfew was also set from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., the mayor said.

As of this writing, Negros Occidental now has 109 COVID-19 cases while Bacolod has 52.