The new mayor-elect Siquio Ng, Bishop Fausto Ramón Mejía Vallejo, province governor Luis Núñez Pantaleón, provincial medical director Ramón Morisette Fabian and many others in the medical and media sectors have tested positive for Covid-19 in northeastern San Francisco de Macorís. Among the deaths that have not been reported are health sector activist Virgilio Lebrón and journalist Pedro Fernández.
The media has reported on the conditions that have favored the spread of the disease in the province. On 25 March, Public Health Minister Rafael Sánchez Cárdenas visited San Francisco de Macorís and ordered quarantine, and patient isolation measures to be stepped up. Those suspect of having the disease and those who have tested positive are now being taken to special isolation areas. Previously, many had been told to self-isolated at home. Private clinics are now not receiving people with symptoms. The government has designed the San Vicente Paul public hospital that has minimal conditions for dealing with the disease.
The Police authorities are also being drastic to ensure that the 5pm to 6am quarantine is kept in the province. The government has ordered special sanitizing of public areas in San Francisco de Macoris.
The disease spread because one of the first imported cases of the virus was that of a Dominican woman who had returned from Italy and tested positive. She was told to self-isolate and did not do so. At the time, the medical staff in San Francisco de Macoris was not adequately prepared to deal with the disease. As a result San Francisco de Macorís was where the first local transmission case occurred. There is now community spreading of the disease in the province.
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El Caribe
27 March 2020