A convent in Quezon City has been placed under granular lockdown after 114 people, including 64 nuns, recently tested positive for COVID-19.

The Quezon City Epidemiology and Disease Surveillance Unit (CESU) said it was investigating the cause of the coronavirus outbreak at the Religious of the Virgin Mary in Cubao.

“Hindi po tayo ang nag-swab sa kanila. Nagpa-test po sila sa iba at nang lumabas na ang resulta sa laboratory, na-record ito sa surveillance data,” QC CESU chief Dr. Rolando Cruz said in a statement on Wednesday, September 15.

(It was not us who swabbed them. They had themselves swabbed somewhere else, and we recorded it via surveillance once the laboratory released their results.)

“Now, our team is conducting an investigation and intensive contact tracing to get more details about the matter,” he added.

Cruz said the probe included determining if any of the positive cases had close contact with anyone outside the facility.

The city government added none of the nuns are vaccinated “because they had their schedule cancelled.” All the staff are fully inoculated.

On September 9, the Quezon City government also disclosed that an orphanage in the city was grappling with a COVID-19 outbreak, with 99 minors testing positive for the dreaded virus.

The city government said Mayor Joy Belmonte has instructed the CESU to ramp up testing at closed-setting facilities, including nursing homes, homes for the aged, rehabilitation facilities, shelters for street children, halfway homes for victims of violence and abuse, hospices, and correctional facilities.

As of Tuesday, September 14, Quezon City was grappling with over 8,000 active COVID-19 cases, according to the data from the health department. – Rappler.com

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