COVID-19 hits BPO firm in Iloilo City

As cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the region and the city continue to spike, the virus has not spared a business processing outsourcing (BPO) firm in Iloilo City after it infected four of its workers.

On Thursday evening, Iloilo City Mayor Jerry Treñas announced in his Facebook account that four employees of one BPO company contracted SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19. He also said that one of the employees died.

“Due to the problem with one of the BPO companies having four cases, l called a meeting with the BPOs,” he said.

The mayor expressed his disappointment on the BPO company for its “lack of cooperation” in the swab collection by the city government. Hence, he called for a meeting with the BPO companies on Thursday.

“I am quite disappointed with the lack of cooperation of one company declining swab testing, and one of the four unfortunately died. I have set a meeting to inform them that whenever we trace someone who’s positive, they should cooperate,” he added.

Treñas said the BPO company will have to look for another laboratory that will carry out the real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) after they refused to cooperate with the city’s extraction team.

“As a consequence of the company’s negligence and irresponsibility, they will have to look for an RT-PCR Lab provider since they refused to cooperate with our extraction team,” he furthered.

In a follow-up Facebook statement on Friday, the mayor once again vented his ire on the “uncooperative” BPO company.

According to the mayor, he received information Friday last week that a family member of one of the agents of the BPO firm died. But the mayor did not mention whether the death is related to COVID-19.

Following the death, Treñas ordered the testing of the employees to stem the possibility of local transmission.

“To inform the public and to set records straight, Friday last week we informed the BPO that one of the agent’s family member died and to contain the spread of the virus that they should start testing their employees with the help of our city health,” he said in his Facebook post on Friday.

But, after almost a week, the BPO firm refused to cooperate with the testing requirements of the city government.

“It was only yesterday morning that they allowed our city health office to start conducting swab testing and to my surprise they only will allow us to swab a few of their agents,” the mayor said.

Treñas hit the company for its lack of cooperation which put at risk persons who might have been exposed in the past seven days.

“In almost 7 days how many persons were exposed because of the non-cooperation of the management? We already lost one life how many lives do they still want to lose? I hope their management will be transparent with what is happening and put the health and lives of their employees first,” he stressed.

The mayor emphasized that the lives of the people is the foremost priority of the city government. “Hence, actions and decisions must be fast in order to contain the virus.”
Local radio reports identified the BPO as IQOR Iloilo.

One of the four sites of the BPO firm was placed under lockdown after three call center agents and one janitor were infected with Covid-19.

Daily Guardian tried reached out to the BPO firm for comments, but it has yet to respond as of this writing. (ERS).