BAGUIO CITY – Authorities are locating the fellow passengers of a returning overseas Filipino (ROF) in a sweeper bus and the close contacts of a school employee after both were confirmed to have been infected with the Delta variant of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
The ROF arrived in July, underwent a 14-day isolation in Manila, and was already tagged as recovered before allowed to go home here.
Mayor Benjamin Magalong, Jr. said they want to assure the other passengers’ safety.
“We are currently conducting contact tracing of 16 passengers who rode with him in a sweeper bus to Baguio,” Magalong said in a text message on Sunday.
The Department of Health-Cordillera Administrative Region (DOH-CAR), in an advisory on Sunday, confirmed the two Delta variant cases.
The other Delta case, an employee of an English language school in Barangay Camp 7, tested positive for Covid-19 after a swab test on July 24.
Magalong said 10 of the more than 100 co-employees also tested positive, causing the city government to place the facility under hard lockdown for 10 days last month.
DOH-CAR is currently backtracking the close contacts. It was not known yet if the school employee has already recovered.
Before the Delta cases were recorded, Magalong said he was already expecting a surge in cases because of the highly transmissible variant.
The city is continuously increasing the capacity of temporary treatment and monitoring facilities, which now has over a thousand beds. This is to augment the facilities of village and private company isolation areas, and the Covid-19 wards in hospitals for symptomatic patients.
A budget of at least PHP8 million is on standby to aid hospitals that will need to purchase and stock up on oxygen, supplies, and medicines.
Starting Monday, non-essential travelers from general community quarantine (GCQ) and modified GCQ areas will be allowed entry to the city if fully vaccinated or with negative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction test result taken at least 72 hours prior to travel.
Entry of other non-essential travelers from areas with higher quarantine classifications remain suspended.
The city still has 407 active Covid-19 cases as of Sunday. (PNA)