Philippine National Police (PNP) chief, Gen. Guillermo Eleazar, on Thursday said they are now conducting focused testing on all other Quezon City Police District (QCPD) personnel after 82 of its officers contracted the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
“Right after the RT-PCR (reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) test results were released and showed that 82 of our QCPD personnel tested positive for coronavirus, we immediately conducted focused testing on all other QCPD personnel in order to identify, isolate and provide necessary medical assistance for all those who may have been infected by the virus,” he said in a statement.
Eleazar said they are now waiting for the RT-PCR results of 167 PNP personnel and that the PNP is already preparing for more testing in coordination with the Quezon City local government unit.
He also called on people to stop speculations as they have yet to determine whether the police personnel were infected with the highly transmissible Delta variant.
Eleazar also added that the PNP has long prepared for all worst-case scenarios like this, which include aggressive vaccination and preparing for more isolation and medical facilities.
“So we assure the relatives of those who were infected and also our kababayans of full attention and care for our personnel,” he said.
Eleazar said he has already ordered the administrative relief of the Station Commander, Police Station 3 of the QCPD, for command responsibility, over an apparent breach of protocol when most of the personnel were deployed to secure President Rodrigo Duterte’s final State of the Nation Address (SONA) even if they were still waiting for their RT-PCR results.
“This should serve as a reminder to all our commanders to exercise prudence and to strictly abide with our existing protocols amid the serious threat of Covid-19, especially with the rising number of infections from the Delta variant,” he added.
As this developed, QCPD chief, Brig. Gen. Antonio Yarra, said 51 out of the 82 personnel who tested positive for Covid-19 were deployed for SONA duty on Monday.
He added that a total of 161 policemen have undergone swab tests last July 23, at Quezon City Epidemiology Surveillance Unit (QCESU), where 82 tested positive while 79 tested negative.
Yarra said he immediately ordered the confinement of 82 positive personnel to the Quezon City HOPE Quarantine Facilities and pursue the contact tracing of the close contacts of these personnel.
Continuous disinfection in the premises of Police Station 3 is now ongoing and 100 fully vaccinated personnel from District Mobile Force Battalion and District Reactionary Standby Support Force personnel were requested to undergo a swab test prior to deployment to the said station.
Source: Philippines News Agency
