By HENRY EMPEÑO | Masinloc, Zambales

THIS town in the northern part of Zambales took the threat of the new coronavirus disease (Covid-19) seriously. Putting up checkpoints, imposing curfew, requiring quarantine and travel passes, and even setting up market schedules, Masinloc successfully kept he virus at bay even when border controls somewhat eased when the province entered modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) in mid-July.

As of August 5 when the whole of Zambales had recorded 54 confirmed Covid-19 cases, with 10 active, 43 recovered, and one death, Masinloc had only one case—and a recovered one at that.

Just 20 days after, however, the town had reported 157 confirmed cases, a count higher than that of the August 18 record of Davao Oriental, which ranks 32^nd among provinces with the most number of cases.

Masinloc’s nightmare began in July 21, less than a week after Zambales was placed under MGCQ .

That day, a 55-year old welder from the City of Muntinlupa arrived at the Masinloc coal-fired thermal power plant, one among the workers a contractor had brought in for some overhauling work at the 600-megawatt plant owned by San Miguel Corporation.

As fate would have it, this worker became Patient Zero (ZAM-61 in the records of the Zambales Provincial Health Office to designate the 61^st patient in Zambales), a case of Covid-19 infection that would soon spread to more than a hundred workers in the coal plant.

Records indicate that Patient Zero first drew attention from company health care workers when he complained of dizziness on July 30. This continued in the next few days, leading him to consult a doctor at the Candelaria District Hospital in the next town on Aug. 3.

On Aug. 4, when Patient Zero lost his appetite, he was brought to a hospital in the capital town of Iba for a rapid antibody test and the result showed he was reactive.

At the provincial hospital where suspected Covid-19 cases are brought for quarantine, Patient Zero developed a fever. He was swabbed on Aug. 6 and results that came out on Aug. 9 confirmed that he was positive of SARS-Cov-2 virus, which causes Covid-19.

Patient Zero eventually tested negative on Aug. 15, and was soon released. But the infection had apparently spread like wildfire at his workplace.

As tracing and testing of his close contacts began after Patient Zero tested positive, more positive cases turned up among workers at the plant. Five initially tested positive on Aug. 16, followed by 15 on Aug. 20.

On Aug. 20, alarmed by the increasing number of cases, Masinloc Mayor Arsenia Lim declared a total lockdown of Barangay Bani, where the coal plant is located, and of Sitio Relocation in nearby Taltal village, where a lot of coal plant workers and their families reside, so that extensive contact-tracing could be made.

Following emergency meetings with provincial health officials, police and disaster management units, as well as managers of the coal plant and representatives of the community’s coal plant monitoring council, Mayor Lim designated the Bani National high School as community isolation area on Aug. 21 to isolate workers and residents who took the swab test.

Meanwhile, those that tested positive were immediately transported to the President Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Hospital in Iba, which was designated by Gov. Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. as a dedicated Covid-19 facility.

Still, the cases at the Masinloc coal plant continued to spiral: 17 more workers tested positive on Aug. 21, 13 on Aug. 22, and 19 on Aug. 23. Worse, while the first batches of patients only involved workers imported into the plant from other places, the succeeding wave of infections had claimed Masinloc natives as well, indicating local community transmission.

By Aug. 24, according to municipal secretary Glenn Elayda, 99 cases have been recorded at the coal plant community, from out of the 1,776 swab tests made.

Then on Aug. 25, with 395 more swab test results still pending, 56 more Covid-19 cases were confirmed, bringing the running tally to 157.

Initially, official announcement from the local government unit of Masinloc on Aug. 25 said that of the total confirmed cases, 115 are plant workers who came from outside the town, mostly from the National Capital Region like Patient Zero, while a total of 40 workers are Masinloc natives, 26 of whom come from Bani, which hosts the power plant.

However, announcement from the same source the following day placed the total of “outsiders” afflicted with Covid-19 at 93 instead of 115, and the total native patients at 64 instead of 40.

The announcement did not contain any explanation for the changes.

As of now, Masinloc has re-imposed stricter measures that made the town Covid-free in the first four months of the quarantine.

Aside from adherence to protocol s from the Department of Health and the Inter-Agency Task Force on Infectious Diseases, Mayor Lim had ordered strict border controls and the re-establishment of talipapa, or wet market, in each barangay to lessen movement among residents.

Residents here point out that the outbreak in Masinloc only happened because border controls were relaxed under MGCQ. They said that Covid-19 cases were already declining in June, but increased again sometime in July.  

Last month, Gov. Ebdane also observed that the recent cases in Zambales were “imported” and involved either newly-arrived residents, repatriated OFWs, or persons who recently travelled to areas with high Covid-19 incidence. ~