22 Makati Medical Center nurses under home quarantine
MANILA, Philippines — Some 22 nurses of Makati Medical Center (MMC) are under home quarantine after exposure to COVID-19 patients, the hospital's medical director said.
Dr. Saturnino Javier, in an interview with ANC's "Headstart" Thursday morning, said some nurses have been cleared for work as the duration of observation has lapsed.
"Usually, we'd want them to quarantine for 14 days although there have been some guidelines already coming out," Saturnino said in a telephone interview with ANC.
According to Javier, if the health worker does not develop symptoms between five to seven days and the level of exposure is low, they can be cleared to to back to work provided that they wear a mask.
"We cannot strictly enforce the 14 days (quarantine). Otherwise we will run out of personnel," Javier said in a mix of English and Filipino.
6 to 8 MMC staff exposed to virus-infected Pimentel
Javier also noted that about six to eight MMC personnel, including doctors, residents and techinicians have been exposed to Sen. Koko Pimentel, who earlier announced that he was positive with COVID-19.
Pimentel accompanied his wife, who was about to give birth, to the hospital on Tuesday night.
The MMC medical director said there could be more staff exposed to the senator who breached the hospital's strict infetion and containment protocols.
"There could be more because we now have to determine the second layer of staff who came into contact with those people," Javier said.
On Wednesday night, MMC released a statement denouncing Pimentel's breach of protocols for entering the premises of the hospital's delivery room and exposing health workers to possible infection.
"He (Pimentel) added to the burden of a hospital trying to respond in its most competent and aggressive manner to cope with the daunting challenges of this COVID-19 outbreak. More than anyone else, Mr. Pimentel, should have realized the ardent desire of every well-meaning Filipino and every dedicated healthcare institution to contain the spread of the infection," the statement read.
Earlier this week, MMC also announced that it will no longer admit COVID-19 cases as the hospital has reached its full capacity.
Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
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The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
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In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
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Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
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