COVID STUDY SHOWS

THE Provincial Health Office (PHO) has launched a study aimed at validating the findings of the World Health Organization (WHO) that asymptomatic persons found positive for COVID-19 have bigger chances of recovering as well as having lesser chances of infecting other persons.

This was revealed by Dr. Anna de Guzman, provincial health officer, when she briefed the Sangguniang Panlalawigan during its virtual session on August 10, where she also debunked speculations that there is now an ongoing community transmission of COVID-19 patients in Pangasinan.

“From the study of WHO and based on our own studies, rarely the asymptomatic patients can infect members of their close contact,” Dr. De Guzman told the SP.

While admitting that almost 60 percent of the COVID-19 cases in Pangasinan are Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), balikbayans and Locally Stranded Individuals (LSIs), Dr. De Guzman said most of the 262 confirmed COVID-19 cases registered since the start of the pandemic, were asymptomatic who recovered and have no record whatsoever of infecting anyone.

She cited the case of the medical front line workers at the Pangasinan Provincial Hospital who were exposed to the virus by taking care of confined COVID-19 patients, and who were also confined afterwards. Being asymptomatic, they never infected members of their families.

She also cited the case of the three doctors at the Eastern Pangasinan District Hospital in Tayug who were also asymptomatic when they were confined for COVID-19 but when members of their families were swabbed for Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction test, they were found negative of the virus.

“What we want to highlight is we have doctors and nurses who were infected but they never transmitted the virus to immediate members of their families,” Dr. De Guzman stressed.

She said, as of August 10, there were 208 COVID-19 patients that have recovered out of 262 confirmed  cases since the start of the pandemic in mid-March this year, attributing the big number of recoveries to the fact that a big majority of the patients were asymptomatic and have not transmitted the virus to other people.

As of August 10, according to De Guzman, there were only 42 confirmed active COVID-19 cases.

But Fourth District Board Member Jeremy Agerico Rosario, also a medical doctor, said PHO’s findings that no community transmission has occurred, are still inconclusive, citing recorded COVID-19 patients that were infected yet had no history of travel whatsoever in Manila, the epicenter of the coronavirus contagion.

De Guzman said the PHO continues to trace the origins of confirmed COVID-19 cases that were asymptomatic to find out if there was really zero transmission of the virus to their communities.

Meanwhile, Rosario suggested that even delivery trucks should be searched as they might be bringing in carriers of coronavirus who are asymptomatic and undocumented.

Board Member Nestor Reyes queried that since asymptomatic persons rarely infect others as shown in the initial studies of the PHO, he asked if it can already be said that there is nothing more to fear of virus infection, Dr. de Guzman said caution is still necessary since vaccine against COVID-19 is still not available. (Leonardo Micua)

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