Authorities are tracking down one woman who escaped the isolation facility in the city last Saturday after she tested positive for COVID-19.
The law enforcers were tapped to help local health officials bring the patient back under custody. It is not clear if she will be returned to Queensland where she was reportedly under quarantine.
“We are now looking for somebody who escaped from the room where she was confined,” Mayor Sara Duterte said in her regular Davao City Disaster Radio program.
She said the patient was not in her house in Barangay 23-C when the team went there. Her relatives and neighbors also have no idea as to her whereabouts.
The female patient was exhibiting mild symptoms of COVID-19. “The Isolation facility also has a COVID-19 positive case,” she explains.
In the city, there are 161 positive cases, but only 57 are considered active. Eighty-one have already recovered while 22 have died. In the region, the total COVID-19 cases already reached 177. One 25-day-old boy also died from the coronavirus. While two other infants tested positive.
Meanwhile, the mayor said that there are nine patients in isolation in center A, two in Center B, three in Center C, and two in Center D. The COVID-19 centers include the Drug Abuse Treatment and Rehabilitation Center, Mental Wellness Center, Rizal Memorial Colleges, Queensland hotel, BSP Camp in Malagos DC-UP Sports Complex, NCCC Dome, RMC Petro Gazz Arena, Alternative learning School Building.
The city has already prepared more than 500 beds in preparation for a possible surge when it opens back the economy.
“Meaning, there are still so many who are around who have not been isolated yet. The important thing is to find people who are positive so we can move them to our hospital,” she said.
Aside from the Southern Philippines Medical Center, the city is currently processing the accreditation of five facilities to become a COVID-19 laboratory testing centers. These are the tuberculosis laboratory in DOH XI, Davao Doctors Hospital, Brokenshire Hospital, Detoxicare Davao One World Diagnostic Center Inc., and Davao City Health Office Laboratory in Los Amigos.
