San Juan mayor contracts COVID-19

MANILA, Philippines — San Juan City Mayor Francis Zamora has contracted the coronavirus, he announced on Monday.

The local chief executive said in a statement he is not experiencing symptoms and remains in good condition.

His results from a routine swab test revealed on Sunday evening that he is positive for COVID-19. He has since been quarantined at the Cardinal Santos Medical Center. 

"[This] is to ensure that I do not transmit the virus to anyone else in the community and to protect everyone around me, including my children and my wife, who is a cancer survivor," Zamora said.

He did not say where he had been before he tested positive.

But Zamora's Facebook page showed him on Sunday leading a distribution of food packs and a vaccine information drive campaign by the group Kalipunan at Sandigan ng Makabagong Kababaihan, or Kasamaka.

He also paid a visit to the site of a fire on Annapolis Street in Barangay Greenhills.

On Friday, February 26, he held a meeting with representatives from the interior and public works departments as well as with the Bureau of Fire Protection and the Philippine National Police for road clearing efforts in the city.

News of Zamora contracting the COVID-19 came nearly a month after another mayor in Metro Manila, Pasay's Emi Calixto-Rubiano, got the virus.

In March of last year, the San Juan mayor also went into a two-week quarantine after being exposed to a staff member who tested positive. — Christian Deiparine