ILOILO – Much to the relief of health authorities, 80 public school teachers in Passi City tested negative for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Their laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 results were released yesterday, according Mayor Stephen Palmares.
“Negative tanan. Kaluy-an lang nga wala sila ma-apektohan pareho ka natabo sa market vendors,” Palmares said.
A recent surge in infections among public market vendors prompted the city government to roll out thorough contact tracing and widespread testing.
According to the mayor, the initial batch of teachers was part of the 1,000 subjected to reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction test.
“Sige-sige don ang mass testing sa aton mga maestra. May more or less 900 teachers pa kita nga wala na-swab,” Palmares explained.
The testing, he said, will be done one batch per week so as not to overwhelm the Philippine Red Cross (PRC) molecular laboratory in Barangay Sablogon.
Those who already had their specimens collected for swabbing were instructed to observe strict home quarantine while waiting for their results.
Citing records from the City Health Office, Palmares said around 10,000 Passinhons have already been tested for COVID-19 since the city government launched its mass testing in August last year.
The total number is nine percent of the city’s total population of about 110,000.
“Amo ran ang aton sistema sa Passi. Natapos na ang city hall employees kag barangay officials. Barangay workers and market vendors don kar-on imaw ka mga teachers,” Palmares said.
As of Thursday, Passi City had 202 active COVID-19 cases out of the 473 total confirmed infections.
So far, 268 individuals already recovered and only three died.
The barangays with the most COVID-19 cases were Poblacion Ilawod (39), Nueva Union (22), Poblacion Ilaya (19), Man-it (16), Imbang Grande (10), Libo-o (nine), Arac (nine), Gines Viejo (nine), Talongonan (six) and Tubod (five)./PN
