Cebu town mayor's testimony: COVID-19 no match for 'tuob'

Mayor Marlon Garcia of Barili town in Cebu, at a local  public forum led by Governor Gwendolyn Garcia on Thursday, testified that his daughter in New Jersey, together with her husband, survived the coronavirus 2019 disease without medical assistance at all, only "tuob" –a Cebuano term for steam therapy.

Mayor Garcia said that sometime in March, his daughter Tessa  –niece of Governor Garcia – called to tell him that she and her African-American husband contracted the coronavirus disease.

Watch video in Cebuano posted on Facebook

In the video call, she appealed to her father to find a way to take care of her  two young children (both below 10 years of age) if she and her husband die.

According to the mayor, all the hospitals in New Jersey at that time refused to admit the symptomatic couple, saying they were already running at maximum capacity, and that they would only admit critical COVID-19 cases.

Thus, the couple were locked up in their house fearing for their lives, and anxious about their young children.

Their ordeal was even made more unbearable by theories circulating everywhere that African-Americans are more likely to die of the disease than Caucasians.

So, Mayor Garcia said, Tessa in desperation called  to tell him about her request to take care of the children.

But he said he told her daughter to at least try the tuob, telling her that she wouldn't lose anything anyway if she did so.

So, Tessa tried the steam therapy under the instructions of some relatives back in Cebu.

"Boil ginger and lemon and do the steaming under a blanket, inhaling the steam for minutes," the mayor, in Cebuano, told her daughter via a video call.

Tessa and her husband tried the home remedy twice daily as instructed. And feeling some improvements after the first try, the couple had religiously continued  to do so for four days and on the 5th day, all the symptoms were gone, the mayor said.

The couple went to a hospital for their swab test, and they were both found free of the virus.

Now, his daughter's husband is back to his work at the New Jersey  transit, the mayor added.

But, while the tuob has been used for hundreds of years in some Asian counties, including the Philippines, there is no scientific and medical evidence yet to prove that the home remedy can cure diseases, or it has therapeutic value. —LBG, GMA News