Albay Capitol under lockdown after employee tests positive for COVID-19

LEGAZPI CITY––The Albay provincial capitol building here was placed under lockdown after a government employee tested positive for COVID-19.

Provincial administrator Vida Maria Corazon Prollamante said in a phone interview that Gov. Al Francis Bichara placed the capitol building on a two-day lockdown on Monday until Tuesday, Sept. 28.

He declared the lockdown after one of the participants at the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Albay’s Devolution Orientation Planning Conference on Sept. 21 was found to have the virus.

It was not clear, however, whether the patient caught the virus before or at the conference.

The conference was held at the AVP Restaurant conference room in this city and was attended by provincial department heads.

The DILG conducted an orientation and planning for the devolution process on the Mandanas Law implementation next year.

Prollamante said the temporary closure of the capitol building would give enough time for the disinfection and contact tracing of people who got in touch with the department heads.

The directive has also ordered all the department heads who participated in the conference to undergo the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction test and 14-day isolation in their respective homes.

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