CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – Some 142 construction workers here tested positive for coronavirus disease, Mayor Oscar Moreno on Friday, February 12, revealed.
Moreno said the city government conducted a RT-PCR test to 343 workers and staff of the construction company involved in a building project in Barangay 30 and it turned out 142 were infected with Covid-19 while 84 workers yielded negative results.
Moreno said most of the workers, 134 of them, were from Cagayan de Oro, and the rest were from Misamis Oriental and other parts of Northern Mindanao.
Dr. Teodulfo Joselito Retuya, the city epidemiologist, said all those who tested positive for Covid-19 have been quarantined at the city’s temporary treatment monitoring facility, while 117 workers who are waiting for their test results are now confined at various isolation units.
Those whose test came out negative are required to stay in their on-site bunkhouses in Barangay 30.
Retuya said most of the positive cases are young, usually below the age of 40, and either asymptomatic or afflicted with mild symptoms.
He said symptoms such as cough were reported on Feb. 1. A series of tests were conducted since that day.
Information gathered by the city health office revealed that a 37-year-old foreman from Barangay Kauswagan, this city, had a chronic cough since December.
The foreman according to Retuya, went home on a holiday break on Dec. 15. When he returned for work on Jan. 7, he tested negative. On Feb. 2, he also tested negative. A third test on Feb. 10 came out positive.
Retuya said they were able to contain the infection by isolating all the workers who have been staying at the construction site.
To prevent further spread of the virus, the city disinfected the site, and gave food relief packs to the workers’ families.-Jigger Jerusalem
