GREEN LIGHT CAME FROM HIM. Mayor Edgar Lignes of El Salvador, Misamis Oriental, admits that he verbally allowed Rene Fuentes, a man with a mental disorder who died in a fire at city hall last week, to be locked up in a local government storage facility. Fuentes was trapped in the facility when the fire broke out, and reportedly died of suffocation. (PHOTO BY NITZ ARANCON)
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By Uriel Quilinguing, Contributing Editor

THE city of El Salvador announced yesterday that two of its residents have tested positive for coronavirus, shedding off its billing as the only city nationwide without a Covid-19 case.

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Mayor Edgar S. Lignes, in a public statement, said that the first two Covid-19 patients in his city are a 44-year old woman who came home from Bali, Indonesia, and a three-year old boy, who took a boat with his mother from Cebu to be back.

Lignes said that both “locally stranded individuals” were fetched at Laguindingan airport and Cagayan de Oro pier and were brought to the local government-run Ligtas Covid Center (LCC), a gymnasium turned into 54-room isolation facility.

The city’s first case is a stranded tourist, a resident of barangay Himaya, who had negative test result upon his return at Ninoy Aquino International Airport last July 27.

She also had negative rapid antibody test result seven days after she arrived in the city, August 3, hence her transfer from the LCC to a barangay isolation unit to complete a 14-day isolation period.

Before sending her home, however, she had positive result from repeat rapid antibody test, hence a reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction test on her specimens was done and these yielded positive for Covid-19.

El Salvador’s second infection from a kid from barangay Poblacion who, with his mom, were also sheltered at the LCC after they disembarked from a passenger ship at Macabalan seaport last August 12.

The city mayor said that the mother was positive while her son was negative in rapid anti-body tests done on the fifth day of their stay at the LCC. But the RT-PCR test results on their swabbed samples showed otherwise.

Lignes said that both confirmed Covid-19 patients are asymptomatic and free from other health issues, still their infections are being monitored by city health office personnel.

Aside from the two, 25 persons, who were feared to be virus carriers, and 23 others had already been cleared after two-week stay in the LCC.

Twenty-three other “LSIs” and 16 “returning overseas Filipinos” had been quarantined and not one was detected with the virus.

Aside from El Salvador, latest cumulative Covid-19 count among cities in Northern Mindanao are Cagayan de Oro (234), Iligan (173), Ozamiz (41), Valencia (36), Malaybalay (29), Gingoog (23), Tangub (14), and Oroquieta (12).

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