BY CARLA P. GOMEZ
The members of the Pontevedra Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office (PRRMO) team have tested negative for COVID-19 and have been released from quarantine, Negros Occidental Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz said yesterday.
The town’s disaster team was held in isolation after a 26-year-old male Pontevedra first responder tested positive for COVID-19, as announced by the Department of Health on July 4.
The Pontevedra frontliner who tested positive for COVID-19 is a member of the DRRMO team that brought a locally stranded individual (LSI) of the town to the EB Magalona healing center to undergo re-swabbing for a Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) test, Fairy Grace Andrico, Pontevedra DRRMO head, said.
Nineteen other Pontevedra DRRMO members and two nurses who were exposed to the 26-year-old frontliner were held in isolation pending the release of the their RT-PCR test results.
Meanwhile, the two-week moratorium on the return of LSIs to Negros Occidental ended Sunday. The return of LSIs by land and sea from Manila to Negros Occidental will resume at a controlled pace until the end of the month, Diaz said.
One flight a day will be allowed with about 150 passengers on board, who will all be quarantined and tested for COVID-19, he said.
Philippine Airlines flights will arrive on Mondays and Fridays, Cebu Pacific on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Air Asia on Wednesdays and Saturdays, he said.
There will be no flights on Sundays.
PAL has asked to be allowed a third flight on Wednesdays which Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson has approved, Diaz said.
The returning LSIs will be quarantined at the Yolanda housing facility in Silay City, he said.
COVID-19 positive patients are being brought to the EB Magalona healing center, he added.
There will be no return of LSIs from Cebu yet, Diaz added.*
