DepEd Bicol office on lockdown after employee contracts COVID-19

LEGAZPI CITY –– The Department of Education (DepEd) Bicol office here would go on lockdown beginning Friday after one of its employees contracted the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Gilbert Sadsad, DepED Bicol chief, said the lockdown would run for several days until 32 employees, who had contact with the male agency official, had their swab test or reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction test.

Sadsad said there are 170 employees at the DepED regional office located at the Government Regional Center in Barangay Rawis in this city.

“The lockdown will stay until further notice and depending on the outcome of the test result, which we will [take] today … while waiting for the result to come out, within two to three days, we would be quarantined at our dormitory,” Sadsad said.

He said those with a positive result but are asymptomatic would be brought for processing to the Legazpi City isolation facility for a 14-day mandatory quarantine, while those with symptoms would be brought to the Bicol Regional Training and Teaching Hospital Isolation facility for observation and treatment.

“Pray for us that the outcome of our swab test would be negative so that we could go home and join our respective families in celebrating Christmas,” he said.

In a phone interview, Sadsad said the COVID-infected official who just came from another region was about to go home for the holidays. As a travel requirement, he underwent a swab test, which then came out positive on Thursday.
He said the official was asymptomatic and had no travel history from other regions, except a recent trip to Naga City, Camarines Sur, for an official visit.

While the regional office is on lockdown, DepEd operation and transaction would continue as regional employees not included in the contact tracing were instructed to work from home, while others would report for work on a skeletal basis.

The Department of Health in Bicol reported that as of Thursday, there were 387 active cases recorded in the region.

The DOH COVID tracker has recorded 3,437 total cases in Bicol since March. The region also has 2,903 recoveries and 147 deaths since March.

LZB