17 workers infected in BGC construction site

The local government placed a construction site at Bonifacio Global City (BGC) in Taguig under a two-week lockdown after 17 workers tested positive for the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

“The health and welfare of the employees in the quarantine site [would] be closely monitored, and no one [would] be allowed to enter or leave the construction site,” the Taguig Safe City Task Force said in an advisory. The localized lockdown started on Tuesday and would end on July 7.

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The Taguig local government did not give further details about the construction site, including its location, “in order to protect [the workers’] right to privacy and avoid unnecessary and undue harm to all the parties involved.”

The City Epidemiology and Disease Surveillance Unit received and probed a report on June 18 that several workers at the construction site were showing COVID-19 symptoms.

The health department tested 27 workers for coronavirus as well as dengue, typhoid, and the Zika virus. The results showed that six of them acquired the infection.

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As of Monday, Barangay Fort Bonifacio has only 29 cases but with the new 17 cases from BGC, bringing the total number of COVID-cases to 82.

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17 workers infected in BGC construction site

“I know this is quite alarming, but please be advised that all new cases were recorded in the BGC construction site that was ordered to go on lockdown [on Tuesday],” Barangay Fort Bonifacio chair Jorge Daniel Bocobo said in a separate statement.

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“The past few weeks, we have seen that we were able to limit the positive cases in the barangay. However, with this incident, we are reminded that the threat of the virus and how it spreads is very real,” Bocobo said.

Under the general community quarantine (GCQ), the Department of Public Works and Highways allowed construction work provided that workers would strictly observe health and labor safety protocols under Department Order No. 39, series of 2020. Metro Manila was placed under GCQ effective on June 1.

Taguig has so far recorded a total of 714 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 21 deaths and 142 recoveries. Three thousand seven hundred fifty-three suspected cases are waiting for testing.