Hero Angeles gets different COVID-19 test results in a span of 24 hours

Actor and visual artist Hero Angeles got the scare of his life when his RT-PCR test result turned out positive.

In a lengthy post on Instagram last July 31, Hero admitted that it was shocking to see the result, but things quickly turned confusing when another RT-PCR test he took yielded a different result.

The real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) test looks for pieces of the genetic strand of SARS-COV 2, which causes COVID-19 as well as acute infection or active infection. It is considered by health experts as the gold standard.

Hero recalled what happened, saying, “Few weeks ago, nag-positive ako sa Covid-19. Nakakagulat at nakakapagtaka. Napatanong na lang ako sa sarili ko, totoo ba 'to?

“I was invited for an out of town vacation with my friends at lahat kami excited dahil allowed na magtravel kahit pandemic. We had our RT-PCR swab test few days before our flight. The results came the next day. They all got a negative result and mine's a positive.

“Parang huminto ang mundo ko that time dahil 'di naman ako lumalabas ng bahay kung di importante, napaisip ako kung paano ko nakuha ang virus.

I got worried too dahil may mga kasama ako sa house na seniors, with comorbidities, and I have hyperthyroidism. We immediately took RT-PCR swab test at home from a different lab company and our results were all negative!”

He added that the situation was a bit confusing, too.

“Our trip was canceled and we followed the protocol even if we all have negative results. 'Yung 1st result ko daw kasi ang i-honor. My friends and family coordinated with our contact tracers and took the 14-day home quarantine.

“I just got confused with my results. From positive, naging negative agad sa loob lang ng 24hrs. Is that even possible? We talked to the laboratories na nag-perform ng tests ko and sabi nila, depende daw 'yun sa test kit na ginagamit. Di ko na tuloy alam kung anong kit ba ang mas accurate talaga.”

Instead of being frustrated, Hero opted to look for the silver lining of what happened to him and in the end, they were all cleared from any COVID-19 infections.

“Pero I am thankful to God kasi we all got cleared and walang nagkasintomas kahit isa sa amin. But at the same time, I am really sorry that this happened. Sorry po sa lahat ng close contact ko na nadamay. Sa mga nangamba at natakot. Sa mga trabaho na naabala. Sa mga special events na na-cancel at di na-attendan. At sa trauma na na-experience ng lahat.

“Sa pangyayaring ito, I realized that life is really short but full of surprises. We need to take good care of our health. We need to have a strong support system. We need to be more sensitive and strong for ourselves and others. It was really depressing but this incident strengthened my faith. I even thanked God for this dahil mas naging aware ako sa maraming bagay.”

The government is racing against time to get people vaccinated especially with the looming threat of the highly-infectious Delta variant.

As of August 1, there are 9,115,963 Filipinos who have been fully inoculated. Unfortunately, the total number of COVID-19 cases in the country has surpassed 1.6 million and the number of COVID-19 active cases stands at 63,137 based on the Department of Health (DOH) data, yesterday August 3.