DUMAGUETE CITY – The province of Negros Oriental has logged two new recoveries from coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) and four new positive cases.

Assistant Provincial Health Officer Dr. Liland Estacion, health committee chair of the province’s Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID), said in a press briefing on Monday that there could now be local Covid-19 transmission in the province.

She said of the 199 throat swab results received Sunday, four were positive. The new patients are from Sibulan (1), Pamplona (2), and Bacong (1). Contact tracing is being done to identify the people whom the infected patients had been exposed to, she added.

Two of the new cases, one from Pamplona and another from Bacong, are authorized persons outside of residence (APORs) who are close contacts of patient NegOr CoV 187, also an APOR from Pamplona. The three traveled to Metro Manila on Oct. 1 and returned Oct. 3, Estacion said.

Three of the new infections are now isolated at the Negros Oriental Provincial Hospital here while the one from Sibulan, a driver of an essential goods delivery vehicle who had traveled to Cebu, is at the town’s isolation facility, she said.

Estacion said as of Oct. 12, the total number of Covid-19 positive cases in Negros Oriental is pegged at 191 with 178 recoveries, eight active infections, and five deaths. (PNA)