BY CARLA P. GOMEZ
Two construction workers of a Department of Public Works and Highways contractor building an isolation dormitory for frontliners at the Teresita L. Jalandoni Provincial Hospital compound in Silay City have tested positive for COVID-19, and have been isolated, Negros Occidental Administrator Rayfrando Diaz said yesterday.
The close to 20 companions of the two COVID-positive workers at the TLJPH construction site have tested negative, he added.
Construction of the isolation dormitory for Negros Occidental COVID-19 frontliners has resumed but workers are not allowed to leave the construction site and mingle with the hospital staff, he said.
The workers will have to remain locked down within the construction site while they are finishing the project, which has a deadline, Diaz said.
Meanwhile, a contractual worker of the Sugar Regulatory Administration Bacolod also tested positive for COVID-19 and some SRA employees have expressed concern that no lockdown was ordered.
An employee also said SRA stakeholders visiting their office should be informed.
The father of the contractual employee from Singcang-Airport, who is a city government employee, tested positive for the virus, too, the source said.
SRA Administrator Hermenegildo Serafica said the COVID positive employee last reported for work at the SRA on August 7.
“On August 10, she informed her supervisor that her father tested positive. We immediately contacted the City Health Office and we followed their advice and immediately did contact tracing,” he said.
Those she had close contact with were immediately sent home and the office where the COVID-positive employee worked was locked down and work was suspended for the whole SRA Bacolod on August 11 so that a thorough disinfection could be done, Serafica said.
The SRA employee tested positive on August 19. The 14-day quarantine of the employees she had close contact with ended yesterday so there is no need for a longer lockdown, Serafica said.*
