BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental, Philippines – The city’s Patient 8 was treated like a regular patient in a government-run hospital here and was buried instead of cremated, the spokesperson of the local COVID19 inter-agency task force told DNX.
Physician Grace Tan added contact tracing had also started yesterday after the task force was informed that Patient 8 tested positive.
The patient, a 69-year-old male, died of severe respiratory failure and acquired pneumonia 9 April inside the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital.
He was admitted into the hospital and placed in a ward after having diarrhea, Tan said. Staff who attended to him did not wear personal protective equipment as he was not considered a COVID case.
The patient stayed briefly in the hospital, between three to four hours only, before he died. Suspected and confirmed cases are usually placed in isolation rooms and staff who tend to them wear personal protective equipment.
Vice-Mayor El Cid Familiaran, task force chair, said the patient was from the urban village of Villamonte and had no contact with a confirmed case and had no history of travel to places with high number of incidents.
The two relatives who watched over him at the hospital have been showing no symptoms while the others who had contact with him are “all well,” Tan said. Tan said they still need to verify if this is a community transmission case.
