Mom, GF of Pinoy with new Covid-19 variant test positive

MANILA – The mother and the girlfriend of a patient found positive for the UK variant have contracted the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte confirmed Wednesday.

Belmonte, however, clarified in an interview with the Philippine News Agency that they are still waiting for the test results from the Philippine Genome Center (PGC) to identify whether the two are also positive for the UK B.1.1.7 variant.

“For those worrying about the case of the mother and the girlfriend of the B 1.1.7 variant positive, let us not react prematurely, both are in quarantine and in isolation and will remain there, and both have not yet tested positive for B 1.1.7. Just wait for the test results from the PGC to come out before we drop our conclusions,” she said.

Before the girlfriend of the patient identified to be infected with the UK variant was brought to an isolation facility by the city government, Belmonte said she was sent on home quarantine by the Bureau of Quarantine (BOQ) after she tested negative for Covid-19.

Belmonte clarified that the decision to send her home was not the move of the local government unit but of the BOQ, since it was the office assigned to keep passengers arriving from another country in a facility.

She said BOQ decided to send her home and undergo home quarantine.

“I asked bakit nasa house, sabi nila na yung UAE (United Arab Emirates) is not a flagged country. Kung umuwi ka and you’re not from a flagged country pala and nag negative ka, pwede kang mag quarantine sa bahay kung mag isa ka. Protocol yan ng BOQ wala kaming kinalaman diyan (I asked why she in her house, they told me that UAE is not a flagged country. If you go back to the Philippines and you test negative for Covid-19 and you’re not from a flagged country, you can do home quarantine if you are alone in your house. That’s BOQ protocol, we don’t have anything to do with that),” she said.

Belmonte added that she also believes that the mother of the UK variant-positive patient acquired Covid-19 independently and not directly from her son.

She said this is because the son, who later tested positive for the variant, tested negative twice, before leaving the country and upon arriving in Dubai.

After arriving from Dubai, the mother and son did not have any encounter as he was isolated right away.

Aside from the mother and the girlfriend, Belmonte assured that there is no other person from the immediate contacts who tested positive for Covid-19.

Belmonte said the city government conducted a very strict contact tracing effort on all the possible contacts of the first B.1.1.7 positive patient.

Meanwhile, the first patient who tested positive for the UK variant Covid-19 has already recovered but Belmonte said he will stay for another week in the isolation facility.