TWENTY-SEVEN teenagers, 14 to 17 years old, who are staying in an orphanage run by a religious group in Barangay Talamban, Cebu City have tested positive for Covid-19.
The teenagers were among 269 people who were reported to be Covid-19 positive in the city on Monday, Aug. 9, 2021.
City Councilor Joel Garganera, deputy chief implementer of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC), said the teenagers are now in isolation on the orphanage’s compound.
The residents of the orphanage who tested negative for Covid-19 were also isolated to prevent them from contracting the coronavirus.
They are still inside the orphanage, but they have been placed far from the Covid-19 patients who are all asymptomatic.
The Cebu City Government will give assistance to the religious group. The personnel from the City Health Department and the EOC are monitoring the patients.
Last Aug. 2, a teenager in the orphanage was swabbed at Cebu Medical Society, one of the city’s cluster clinics, after showing Covid-19 symptoms, Garganera said.
Two days later, the test result showed that the teenager had contracted the coronavirus.
On Aug. 5, the EOC swabbed the 37 children and teenagers in the orphanage, and 27 of them tested positive.
This comes after a home care center in another city in Cebu was also struck by Covid-19.
In Lapu-Lapu City, Mayor Junard Chan visited last Monday the Home Care Center where 31 children and two employees had tested positive for Covid-19. He distributed food and vitamins.
Chan brought along with him Lapu-Lapu City Hospital chief Dr. Ronal Oporto to educate the children on what to do for their recovery.
The children were all asymptomatic. They were separated from the children who tested negative, and they were placed on the second floor.
The center is home to children in conflict with the law and abandoned children. (PAC, GCM / KAL)