LIST: Public officials currently under voluntary quarantine
MANILA, Philippines — Both the Center for Disease Control and the World Health Organization have suggested the public practice social distancing or intentionally avoiding mass gatherings and maintaining distance from anyone displaying symptoms linked to the new coronavirus.
The Health department has also suggested that persons under investigation practice home quarantine and assessment, monitoring and management with their respective city or municipal offices. Those under self-quarantine are asked to sustain this for at least 14 days, which is how long the virus takes to incubate.
In the wake of this announcement, several officials have gone into voluntary quarantine in an attempt to quell the spread of the virus, which has already been confirmed in 49 patients as of this writing.
Here's a running list of public officials who have announced their voluntary quarantine.
Cabinet Secretaries:
- Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea
- DOTr Secretary Arthur Tugade
- DOTr Asec. Goddes Hope Libiran
- BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno
- DOF Secretary Carlos Dominguez
- DPWH Secretary Mark Villar
- BCDA President Vince Dizon
Congress:
- Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian
- Sen. Nancy Binay
- Sen. Sonny Angara
- Sen. Sen. Panfilo Lacson
- Sen. Imee Marcos
- Sen. Francis Tolentino
- Davao Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio
- Davao Rep. Isidro Ungab
LGUs:
- Manila Mayor Francisco "Isko Moreno" Domagoso
- Navotas Rep. John Rey Tiangco
- Caloocan Mayor Oscar Malapitan
- Malabon Mayor Antolin Oreta
- Navotas City Mayor Toby Tiangco
- Valenzuela City Mayor Rex Gatchalian
- BARMM interior minister and regional spokesperson Naguib Sinarimbo
According to a bulletin dated February 26 on the department’s Screening Tool, the DOH looks at three main factors before placing an individual under Patient Under Investigation status:
- Signs and symptoms: Does the person exhibit any respiratory symptoms linked to the novel coronavirus? Does the person have a fever over 38.0 degrees?
- Travel history in the past fourteen days to areas with issued travel restrictions
- History of exposure to confirmed cases or other PUIs
As of this writing, some 126,000 worldwide have been afflicted with the new virus.
If you believe you have come into possible contact with infected patients, you may be directed to the proper office of the Department of Health for advice through the following lines: (632) 8651-7800 local 1149-1150 or (632) 165-364.
You may also opt to call the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine at (02) 8807-2631/ 8807-2632/ 8807-2637.
Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.
The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.
In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
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