8 more Lemery PNP personnel test positive for Covid-19

By Jennifer P. Rendon

 

The Lemery Police Station in Iloilo province has yet to return to normal operation after it was placed on “quarantine” on January 26, 2021.

This after eight of its personnel – 7 police officers and a non-uniformed personnel – also tested positive for the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).

Colonel Gilbert Gorero, Iloilo police chief, said the eight personnel were already isolated.

All of them are also asymptomatic, he added.

But those who tested negative have yet to return to work.

Gorero said that the Lemery Rural Health Unit has recommended that all persons who were negative in the first Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) test will have to be re-swabbed again.

“Just to be sure. Some of them have colds and we don’t want to take chances,” he said.

The Lemery Police Station was placed on quarantine after their chief of police, Captain Edwin Belarmino, tested positive.

Belarmino went home to Cauayan, Negros Occidental on January 24.

As a precautionary measure, he underwent RT-PCR test before joining his family. Two days later, the result indicated that he contracted the virus.

While on quarantine, police officers who will be re-swabbed can still perform administrative functions while waiting for their second swab test results.

In the meantime, Gorero has detailed two investigators from Sara and San Joaquin police stations.

He also deployed members of the 2nd Iloilo Provincial Mobile Force Company to take over the station’s other operational functions,

On January 22, IPPO has ordered personnel of San Joaquin Police Station to go on quarantine after four detainees and one cop turned out positive for Covid-19.

But more than a week after the isolation of its personnel, the San Joaquin Police Station is back on normal operation.

Gorero, Iloilo police chief, said personnel who were earlier placed on quarantine were allowed to go back to work on January 30 after the release of their negative RT-PCR result.

But four more policemen have also contracted the virus.

On January 22, the Iloilo Police Provincial Office (IPPO) placed the San Joaquin Police Station on quarantine after four detainees and one cop turned out positive for Covid-19.