The Emergency Operations Center of Bacolod City on COVID-19 sounded an alarm yesterday and order Transcom Bacolod to shutdown its operations for 24 hours after nearly 7% of its 594 employees tested positive of the deadly virus with some workers showing symptoms.
City Administrator said the BPO facility will be closed for 24 hours for disinfection and decontamination.
As of posting time, no confirmation yet from the call center operator if operations were suspended.
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Ang confirmed a clustering of new cases COVID-19 cases within Transcom forcing Mayor Bing Leonardia to call for an emergency Zoom meeting with EOC and Transcom executives, yesterday, January 31.
According to Ang the first case appeared in the EOC list last January 23, and two more cases in the following day and another 4 new cases within the next 2 days.
After aggressive contact tracing and surveillance testing, 16 more cases from the same workplace were found on Saturday, January 30 and additional 11 positive cases today, January 31 bringing the total to 41 new cases, Ang said.
While a quick action was made on the part of the city, Ang said the EOC’s Monitoring and Enforcement Team were barred to conduct an on-site inspection last January 23 and was instead required to first submit a letter from the EOC and to undergo rapid testing before they would be allowed to go inside the premises.
Another visit was made last January 26, with their official apprised of the rapid growth of cases in their facility. Workplace safety was reviewed and the management was again reminded of minimum health protocols and other safety guidelines, Ang added.
The EOC also recommended improvements in physical working conditions such as the use of physical distancing, work-from-home arrangement, and to secure temporary lodging and transportation for workers and strict compliance with the use of the BaCTrac system.
As of today, a number of mobile patrol from the PNP were seen outside of the Transcom facility.
NegrosNews.Online have reached out to Helene Ruda, Transcom’s Head of Group Communications, but we are still waiting for an official response.
