BY GILBERT P. BAYORAN
Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz confirmed yesterday that a Capitol department head, who is the officer-in-charge of the Provincial Budget Office, tested positive for COVID-19.
Diaz, however, said the officemates of the OIC, who were immediately subjected to swab testing, had tested negative for the virus.
He raised the possibility that the Capitol department head got the infection from the “prayer warriors”, whom she and her mother invited for prayers into their home in Bacolod City, following the negative results of her officemates from the virus.
Diaz said the OIC department head voluntarily submitted herself to a swab testing Friday after experiencing a fever two days earlier, and the result came out Saturday.
The Provincial Budget Office, which is now in normal operation, and the Sangguniang Panlalawigan session hall, were disinfected Saturday, following the new infection.
Diaz said that some Capitol employees, who had sat with her during the budget deliberations of her office at the SP session hall, also tested negative of the virus.
But he added that the brother-in-law of the OIC department head also tested positive of the virus. Both are now under quarantine at the Mambukal Mountain Resort in Murcia.
He added that the Provincial Health Office tracking team has been ordered to locate the five “prayer warriors”, who were reported to be senior citizens, and may be transferring from “funeral wake to another funeral wake”, and spreading the virus.
Diaz, who recalled that the local transmission of the virus in Kabankalan City also originated from a funeral wake, said he is discouraging people from accepting visitors.
“Think twice before doing it,” he added.*GPB
