Cagayan de Oro counts 9 new Delta cases, isolates 15 contacts

Public health workers took and brought 24 people, nine of whom tested positive for COVID-19 Delta variant infections, to local isolation facilities, an official of the Cagayan de Oro City Health Office said on Thursday, October 14.

Dr. Teodoro Yu Jr., CHO medical officer, said 15 of those taken for quarantine were identified as close contacts of nine people confirmed this week to have contracted the Delta variant. They were given COVID-19 tests.

Those who tested positive for the more transmissible variant were earlier taken to the isolation facilities for observation, Mayor Oscar Moreno told an online briefing on the COVID-19 situation in the city.

Six of the nine were certified as clinically recovered, and two others tested negative for COVID-19.

Yu said seven were female and two were male.

Officials said those found with the Delta variant are from the villages of Tignapoloan, Camaman-an, Balulang, Bulua, Consolacion, and Bonbon.

Samples from the patients were taken from September 1 to September 3, and the results were released by the Philippine Genome Center on Monday, October 11.  

The City Health Office has so far counted 91 Delta variant cases in the city this year. Of the 91 patients, 81 were classified as clinically recovered or tested negative for the virus already, eight died, and two were re-tagged and being closely observed.

The new findings came at a time when Cagayan de Oro has been seeing weeks of decline in its single-day numbers of COVID-19 cases. – Rappler.com

Froilan Gallardo is a Mindanao-based journalist and an awardee of the Aries Rufo Journalism Fellowship