Camalig mayor orders town hall closure after 28 staff test positive for virus

Camalig town in Albay (Wikipedia maps)

LIGAO CITY — The town hall and the local government offices of Camalig in Albay province is on lockdown starting on Wednesday, January 12, after 28 employees were found positive for coronavirus via antigen testing.

“We have 28 personnel who tested positive when I ordered antigen mass testing,” Mayor Carlos Irwin Baldo told Inquirer in a phone interview Wednesday.

Baldo said he ordered the mass testing for the local government unit’s 400 personnel, also on Wednesday, after one of the employees got sick during a one-stop-shop licensing activity.

“The employee who tested positive with antigen had close contacts with other employees so in order to make sure that everyone is infected or not all of them must undergo antigen test,” he said.

He said those individuals who tested positive are subject to a reverse transcription-polymerase chain (RT-PCR) test to confirm if they are infected with SARS-CoV-2, which causes the illness COVID-19. They were also advised to isolate to avoid the spread of the virus.

“All work [in physical offices] are canceled for the meantime but will resume very soon once cleared of infection,” Baldo said.

He said the only agency that is not on lockdown is the municipal disaster risk reduction council.
Vaccination events are also canceled.

As of January 12, the municipality has a total of 539 confirmed COVID-19 cases including 486 recoveries and 33 deaths since the pandemic started in 2020.

The town also currently has 20 active cases.