THE FIRST patient under investigation (PUI) recorded in this freeport for possible 2019 coronavirus disease (Covid-19) infection has tested negative.
Lawyer Wilma T. Eisma, chairman and administrator of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA), said the first PUI, a Briton who traveled to the United Kingdom, exhibited symptoms like fever, cough, colds, and diarrhea.
Eisma said the PUI was first confined in an isolation facility at the Baypointe Hospital and Medical Center complex here and was later transferred to the Medical City in Clark Freeport where he was quarantined and tested negative.
However, she said a second PUI was recorded here Wednesday.
The second PUI, she said, is 50-year-old Filipino who went to Manila last week but has been admitted to an isolation facility here.
Eisma said the patient is currently in an intensive care unit (ICU) with fever, but is reported to be in stable condition.
“I ask and beg each and every one of you. Please stay home. Covid-19 is highly contagious which can cause death and has no cure. Between the hospitals at the Subic Bay Freeport and Olongapo City, we only have around 20 isolation rooms. The reality is we do not have enough resources to handle a contagion of any magnitude,” she said.
Eisma urged all Subic Freeport stakeholders to stay at home and heed the government’s quarantine protocols.
The SBMA had earlier shut down most of its offices in compliance with Malacañang’s declaration of enhanced community quarantine all over Luzon.
Eisma said only the agency’s Public Health and Safety Department, Law Enforcement Department, Fire Department, and the Maintenance and Transportation Department are fully operational.
She said 18 other SBMA offices operate with skeletal force while 10 others have totally shut down to minimize person-to-person contacts in the Subic Bay area.
The agency also initiated disinfection and decontamination works on hotels, other establishments, and buildings frequented by people.(By Ruben Veloria)
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