Transportation Assistant Secretary Goddes Libiran said Thursday a total of 203 Metro Rail Transit-3 (MRT3) employees tested positive for COVID-19 after testing all of its 3,304 personnel.
“Testing of all personnel completed as of yesterday,” Libiran said.
In an interview with GMA News Online, Librian said 1,199 MRT3 personnel already tested negative for the virus, as of today, July 9. MRT3 is still waiting for other results to be released, she added.
The DOTr exec said MRT3 needs 1,308 personnel to resume operations at a minimum.
Libiran also clarified that 15 of the infected personnel were working at train stations, and not 16 as previously reported.
“Nagkaroon ng double count earlier sa ticket sellers per MRT3,” she explained.
(A double count occurred earlier in the ticket sellers per MRT3.)
Also, 0nly 14, and not 15, were deployed as ticket sellers at different stations—seven at North Avenue Station, three at Cubao, two at GMA Kamuning, one at Quezon Avenue, and one on reserve status.
Libiran said one nurse at a station also tested positive for COVID-19.
Also read: 92 MRT3 personnel tested positive for COVID-19
Undersecretary Timothy John Batan earlier announced MRT3 would stop operations from Tuesday, July 7, until July 11, for the rest of the staff to undergo the COVID-19 test.
“Gagawin po natin ‘yan dahil sa gusto po natin matapos ‘yung tinatawag natin na swab testing o RT-PCR testing ng lahat ng ating tauhan, lahat ng ating MRT3 personnel,” said the official.
(We will do that because we want to do what we call swab testing or RT-PCR testing of all our staff, all our personnel.)
Although some MRT3 employees tested positive of the virus before, it continued its operations since the infected are deployed in the train’s depot and had no contact with passengers.
But recently, Batan said, some MRT personnel assigned to several stations were also infected with the virus.
“However, itong late last week, nag-umpisa nitong Friday and Saturday ay nakapagtala tayo ng positive cases sa ilan nating mga stations,” he added.
(However, this late last week, beginning Friday and Saturday, we have recorded positive cases at some of our stations.)