32 catch COVID-19 in Isabela town during holidays

TUGUEGARAO CITY, Cagayan, Philippines — Thirty-two persons, eight of them local government employees, tested positive for coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19 in Tumauini, Isabela during the holidays.

Tumauini Mayor Arnold Bautista said a local government official and his daughter, who breached the health triage, are among the new cases.

Bautista said the two arrived from Los Baños, Laguna before Christmas and did not go on self-quarantine.

He said the wife of the official and two members of their household were also infected.

Bautista placed a barangay and sitios of six adjoining villages on lockdown yesterday to prevent the spread of the virus.

He also ordered the disinfection of the municipal building.

In Isabela, the provincial inter-agency task force on COVID-19 said an aide of the head of the Department of Labor and Employment field office in Ilagan City contracted the virus a few days after the official was found infected.

Nineteen employees of the DOLE-Isabela office were isolated while waiting for the result of their swab test.

In Ifugao, an 84-year-old man who died in Kiangan town on Wednesday tested positive for COVID-19, results released on Friday showed.

The municipal health office said the fatality tested negative for the virus when he was confined in a hospital from Dec. 4 to 26.

Meanwhile, the number of police officers who contracted the virus rose to 9,036 yesterday after 22 new cases were recorded.

Twelve of the new patients are from Eastern Visayas, Metro Manila, Davao, Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and the Cordilleras.

The 10 others are from various police administrative and operational support units. – Emmanuel Tupas