MAYOR LAGNADA: 33 SUSPECTED COVID-19 DEATHS IN BUTUAN, CONFIRMATORY TEST STILL PENDING

BUTUAN CITY – There are already a total of 33 COVID 19 deaths in Butuan City who are not included in the official data released by the Department of Health (DOH Caraga), as stated by the City Mayor Ronnie Vicente Lagnada during the situational press briefing on the progress of the city's battle against COVID-19 last August 31, Monday.

According to the mayor, the confirmatory tests for the 33 expired patients are still pending. In an unofficial report he received, there are eight (8) numbers of death reported instead of seven (7).

“Kung tan-awon nimu, 7 deaths official but there are 33 deaths unofficial gani gaina nga report sa DOH 8 na, so again very alarming,” said Mayor Lagnada.

(If you look at it, officially, there are seven (7) deaths, but there are still unofficial 33 deaths reported by DOH 8. So, again [this is] very alarming.)

As of August 29, the city has a total cumulative number of 215 positive cases presented during the press briefing.

Out of the total 215 confirmed cases, 17 are ROFs, 39 are LSIs, 15 are health workers, 5 are frontliners, seven (7) reported deaths and hundreds of locally-transmitted cases.

The mayor further said the local government is strengthening the contact-tracing, particularly in hotspots barangays with the most number of positive cases such as barangay Ambago. He also stated that aside from the Gene-Xpert machine, the RT-PCR machine in Butuan Medical Center (BMC) is possibly operational by September 1, Tuesday, for faster return of results and more testing capacity.