BACOLOD City – Eight Bacolodnon students of the University of the Philippines Visayas (UPV) were sent home after completing their mandatory 14-day quarantine at a school facility in this city.
The students, stranded at the UPV main campus in Miagao, Iloilo during the enhanced community quarantine, were assisted by the city government in their return here on May 5.
Immediately after their arrival, they were brought to the Mariano G. Medalla Integrated School, which has been set up by the city government as a coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patient care center for non-overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
“They all completed their 14-day mandatory quarantine (on May 18) with flying colors. All (of them) yielded negative test results for COVID-19,” councilor Cindy Rojas, chair of the action team for non-OFW returning residents, said on her Facebook post.
The students, along with a couple who were also quarantined in the same facility, tested negative in the real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction.
Each of them received a copy of their result and a certificate of completion from the City Health Office.
Rojas then gave reminders to the students and the couple during the send-off which was also attended by Dr. Karen Gensoli, barangay health workers and police personnel.
“Team Department of Social Services and Development prepared dinner for them, and they were all individually dropped off to their respective homes,” she added.
The UPV students were part of the first batch of non-OFW returning residents assisted by the city government.
The second batch included 15 Bacolodnons who traveled on a special flight of the Philippine Airlines from Manila on May 9.
On May 13, a total of 53 non-OFW residents of Bacolod stranded in Cebu also came home via Escalante City.
The latest group was picked up by the city government bus and brought to the Education and Training Center School extension campus in Barangay 16 to undergo a mandatory 14-day quarantine,too.(With a report from PNA/PN)
