ILOILO City – Two employees of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in Region 6 died due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) while eight more were infected.
DENR-6 Executive Director Livino Duran ordered their office closed for disinfection until yesterday.
More than a dozen DENR employees were swabbed; 10 tested positive for COVID-19 including two deaths. All of them were from the regional office doing field work.
DENR-6 has launched a contact tracing.
The close contacts of the COVID-19-positive employees must undergo a mandatory swab testing and 14-day quarantine.
The number may be quite alarming, according to Duran, but DENR-6 is integrate all safety measures to contain the spread of the virus in the regional office and in two other buildings – the Teodoro S. Simpas building which houses the Surveys and Mapping Division in Barangay Santo Rosario and the Manuel L. Lagunilla building on Parola Street which houses a hostel and the offices of the National Greening Program (NGP) and Biodiversity, Coastal, Wetlands and Ecotourism Research Center (BCWERC).
“We are also monitoring the number of personnel already vaccinated and encourage employees to register with their respective local government units for vaccination,” said Duran.
Operations at the regional office are expected to resume on Monday (Aug. 2)./PN
