FOR the first time, the state-run Northern Mindanao Medical Center does not have a patient in its emerging and reemerging infectious diseases department (Eridd) since March 8, when Mindanao’s first coronavirus disease (Covid-19) infection was confirmed here.
“We’re happy that for the first time, from the time we started accepting Covid-19 patients, our Eridd is finally zero (admission),” said Dr. Bernard Julius Rocha, spokesperson of the NMMC, in today’s noon-time press briefing at City Hall.
Rocha reported that the female 49-year old patient, who was admitted to the NMMC on May 29, was discharged at 12:15 pm today.
The patient, he said, tested negative for Covid-19 on third GeneXpert reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction examination.
NMMC had the most number of Covid-19 admissions on first week of May with eight cases.
“The fight is not yet over, so we continue to prepare for possible surge (of Covid-19 cases), since the NMMC is the region’s referral hospital,” Rocha said.
The NMMC medical specialist credited the medical center’s decongestion at it’s Eridd to the temporary treatment and monitoring facilities (TTMF) which the city government has set up for asymptomatic, yet confirmed Covid-positive patients.
Dr. Lorraine Jungco-Nery, the city health officer and chair of the city’s emergency operation center for Covid-19, said that all the 12 active cases are in their TTMF, occupying separate rooms and their health conditions closely monitored by a medical team.
Nery said there are 1,429 people who are under quarantine, 814 of them are housed in 18 community isolation units (CIU) composed of 712 "locally stranded individuals" and 98 returning overseas Filipinos.
Of the city’s 80 barangays, 55 of these have residents undergoing home quarantine.
These, the city health officer, said are those who had either history of travel (LSI or ROF), exposure to infected people, and contact-traced, but are asymptomatic.
As of today, the city has had a cumulative total of 28 Covid-19 confirmed cases - nine recovered while six succumbed to the disease since March 24, this year. (Uriel C. Quilinguing)
