BONTOC, Mountain Province July 02 – The provincial government disclosed that the first Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) patient in the province was recently discharged from the State-owned Luis Hora Regional Memorial Hospital (LHRMH) after testing negative for the deadly virus during his second confirmatory test.
Gov. Bonifacio C. Lacwasan, Jr. said that the 19-year old male from Soquib, Besao town was able to recover after contracting the virus from his older brother who tested positive for COVID in Buguias, Benguet.
He said that the provincial and municipal governments continue to be on alert in the management of the entry of individuals in their borders with other provinces in the Cordillera, Ilocos and Cagayan Valley regions to prevent the entry of persons who might be carriers of the virus and eventually transmit the same to their close contacts.
“We hope that there will be no additional COVID cases in the different parts of the province that will be discovered because of the continuous entry of people as we are doing our best to monitor their health status before allowing them to go home to their places,” Gov. Lacwasan stressed.
Mountain Province remained COVID-free for more than two and a half months since the implementation of the Luzonwide enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) and general community quarantine (GCQ) and the first case was discovered only in the first week of June.
The province’s first COVID case was the close contact of his older brother who is a police officer assigned in Camp Dennis Molintas, Buguias, Benguet who earlier visited their place for personal and official functions.
The governor pointed out that with the further downgrading of the province’s status to modified GCQ low risk, quarantine checkpoints in the province’s borders will still remain where people entering the province will be triaged pursuant to established health and safety protocols before being cleared to enter the province and proceed to their desired destinations.
According to him, the provincial government will continue to engage the services of job order health personnel who will be assigned in the border checkpoints and other health facilities to ensure the strict implementation of existing health and safety protocols to prevent the emergence of more confirmed cases in the province in the coming weeks.
Lacwasan urged motorists who will be encountering delays in the border checkpoints in going in and out of the province to be patient in complying with the prescribed procedures to ensure that they will possess the proper documents for their essential or indispensable travel.
The local chief executive explained that the ongoing gradual resumption of economic activities in the different parts of the province is part of the guidelines crafted by the national inter-agency task force for the management of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases to ensure that people will have sustainable sources of income aside from effectively and efficiently managing the wrath of the deadly virus.
He underscored that one of the major factors that contributed in the prevention of the spread of the deadly virus in the province is the adherence of the people to the protocols for them to stay at home and avoid unnecessary mass gatherings that will serve as a vehicle in the transmission of the illness. By Hent