CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY - The City Health Office (CHO) here has intensified the monitoring of the first-generation close contacts of the second batch of people infected with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus disease 2019.
In an online briefer Thursday, CHO medical officer Dr. Ted Yu Jr. said they have identified 121 first-generation close contacts of the recently reported 32 Omicron cases in the city.
Yu said none of the close contacts, as of the moment, are experiencing Acute Respiratory Illnesses (ARI) or Influenza-Like Illnesses (ILI).
Mayor Oscar Moreno stressed the need for intensive monitoring of close contacts even if it has been more than a month since they got infected.
"It's been a month already but nonetheless we should continue (the monitoring). The best thing of our contact tracing, validation, and assessment will actually serve as good reference material for the report to Philippine Genome Center when it comes to the variants," Moreno said.
On Tuesday, the city government reported the 32 new detected Omicron cases that included 31 local cases and one returning overseas Filipino (ROF).
According to Yu's previous report, five of the cases were from Balulang village; three cases each from the villages of Kauswagan, Nazareth, Iponan, and Cugman; and two cases each from the villages of Patag, Carmen, Macabalan, and Gusa.
Also, the villages of San Simon, Puntod, Bulua Macasandig, Bugo, Lapasan and Indahag had one case each of the variant.
The 18 first-generation closed contacts of the first seven Omicron variant tested positive for Covid-19 but with the said variant.
The CHO has so far tallied 39 Omicron cases.
Meanwhile, the city has detected 44 new Covid-19 cases, bringing the total active cases to 1,974 and the total cumulative cases to 25,366.
The total recoveries from the virus have reached 22,480 after the CHO reported 165 new recoveries. They also reported one new death, bringing the total to 915. (PNA)
