Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 15) — A councilor in a Negros Oriental town has died due to COVID-19, Governor Ruel Degamo announced on Sunday.
This brings the death toll in the country due to the virus to nine and the fatality rate to nine percent — higher than the global average of three to four percent. However, the official Department of Health tally still stands at eight.
The 64-year-old town councilor, the 39th patient with the viral disease in the country, had visited Greenhills in San Juan City and attended the Philippine Councilors League convention in SMX Convention Center in Pasay City.
The provincial health office earlier said the patient went to Manila on February 28 to attend a convention, went to Greenhills, and took an early morning flght back home on March 7. He was earlier admitted to the Allied Care Experts Dumaguete Doctors, Inc. and was transferred to the Silliman University Medical Center.
Greenhills houses a prayer hall which was frequented by a 62-year-old patient with COVID-19, considered to be the first local case of the disease. He and his 59-year-old wife, who also contracted the disease, have also died.
This story is breaking and will be updated.
