Address discrepancies discovered

CEBU, Philippines — Barangay Guadalupe in Cebu City has discovered alleged discrepancies in the addresses of close to 50 people who reportedly tested positive for COVID-19.

While the situation contributed to the sudden rise of COVID-19 cases in Guadalupe, barangay captain Michael Gacasan is concerned more about how the virus was being transmitted.

Gacasan, in an interview with The Freeman, said they found out that some addresses of their patients are in other barangays. This caused some delays in the release of their daily updates.

Gacasan personally leads the barangay’s contact tracing effort, in which they found out that some of the patients are not from their barangay.

He already forwarded their concern on the discrepancy to the City Health Department, but has yet to get answer from it of yesterday.

Guadalupe’s tracing team, however, found out that the incident is also happening in Barangay Labangon.

“Amo na ning gireklamo kay lainlain mag address, ang Labangon nabutang diri sa amoa.Wa na gyud nagkadimao. Naa pud kunoy Guadalupe, tua nabutang sa Labangon. Nayabag na ning contract tracing,” said Gacasan.

DILG Secretary Eduardo Año earlier expressed concern over the slow process of contact tracing in Cebu City that may have also contributed to the spread of the virus, adding the discrepancy of the addresses could be another problem.

As of its latest monitoring, Guadalupe has 156 active cases with 51 recoveries and 14 deaths, but Gacasan said, based on his own estimate, the number could only be close to 70, which are still active cases.

Other than the discrepancy, what bothers Gacasan is that a lot of their active cases come from hospitals, either by health workers or those who have just given birth.

“Kasagaran diri ron gikag hospital, health workers, ilang pamilya natakdan. Mga frontliners, mostly. Maybe angay pud ning tan-awn,” said Gacasan.

Aside from the frontliners, there were also those who gave birth in the hospitals and their watchers who ended up being COVID-19 positive.

“Naay mga nanganak sa hospital, nag-positive. Ang nag bantay nila nag-positive pud. Wa sila kabalo nag-positive na diay sila,” added Gacasan.

“Walay outbreat sa usa ka sitio.Gikan gyud ni sila kasagaran sa hospital. So di mi ka impose ug lockdown sa isa ka sitio kay buwag-buwag man,” he added.  LPM (FREEMAN)