The 3-year-old boy and 63-year-old woman from Barangay Mansilingan, Bacolod City, hit with the highly contagious Delta variant, tested negative for COVID-19 Tuesday, August 17, City Administrator Em Ang said.
They had already recovered from COVID-19 but were retested on Tuesday after the Philippine Genome Center informed the city government that they had been hit with the Delta variant, Ang, who is also executive director of the City Emergency Operations Center (EOC), said.
The parents of the boy and the two children of the woman also tested negative for COVID-19 Tuesday, Dr. Chris Sorongon, EOC deputy for medical data and analysis, said.
Sorongon said the lifting of the surgical lockdowns on their homes is likely, but they will refer the matter to the Department of Health.
The 63-year-old had been fully vaccinated with Sinovac that could be the reason why she only manifested mild symptoms of the virus and was not hospitalized, Ang said.
The boy was asymptomatic and may have been infected with COVID-19 by his father who is a security guard at a bank, she said.
Most of the bank employees had earlier tested positive for COVID-19.
THETA VARIANT CASES
Meanwhile, specimens of seven COVID-19 patients sent by the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital molecular laboratory to the Philippine Genome Center have tested positive for the Theta variant, Dr. Julius Drilon, CLMMRH chief, said.
Ang said the city government has received a report of only five new Theta variant cases.
The World Health Organization has downgraded the classification of the Theta variant, which was first found in the Philippines, from being a “variant of interest” to an “alert for further monitoring.”*