ILOILO – Thirteen employees of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Iloilo 4th Engineering Office in Barangay Bolong Oeste, Santa Barbara, Iloilo tested positive for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Speaking to Panay News, Engineer Mario Soriano said an employee exhibited coronavirus symptoms last week. He was subject to reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test and later yielded a positive result for COVID-19.
Contact tracing followed; 22 close contacts were identified as “high risk”. They were swabbed.
Most of the 13 infected employees were assigned at the Quality and Assurance Section.
Soriano said work in affected offices has been suspended until June 18.
Ten of the 13 employees were asymptomatic. They’re on home quarantine now.
“‘Yung tatlo nasa hospital. They are being treated for mild symptoms,” Soriano said.
The management could not ascertain the index case.
As this was being written, Soriano said they were waiting for the decision of DPWH Region 6 relative to the local government of Santa Barbara’s recommendation of temporarily suspending their operations./PN
