By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

A total of 700 households in Barangay Bug-ang, Toboso, Negros Occidental were placed on lockdown for seven days by the local Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) after nine residents tested positive for coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19.
Mayor Richard Jaojoco said the first to be infected was a personnel from the Department of Education and after contact tracing, her husband, two children and her mother were also tested positive on Monday, April 5.

Three of her relatives and another close contact yielded positive results on Tuesday, Jaojoco said.
“We are still waiting for the results of more than 20,” he said.
The mayor said that the town’s IATF implemented a one week lockdown to enable it to effectively conduct contact tracing because residents in the area refused to submit themselves to swab tests and there was denial that they have contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19.
Meanwhile, the municipal government will only allow essential transactions to go in and out of the lockdown area of the barangay.
Only one member of each household will be issued an essential pass, the IATF resolution said.
Jaojoco said that the municipal government provides 10 kilos of rice and 10 canned goods per household.
He also believes that the rise in the number of COVID-19 cases in the town in the last two weeks may be caused by “a new variant” which was spreading very fast.
He added that at the municipal hall there are two positive cases from the Mayor’s Office, three from the police station and two from the Army.
Contact tracing is now ongoing.
Jaojoco underwent a swab test on April 4 after being exposed to his executive assistant who tested positive for the virus.
“My result was negative,” the mayor said./DGB, WDJ