20 Immigration Officers have reportedly been ordered to quarantine at home after being in contact with three employees who have since tested positive for the Covid19 virus.
Reports are that the first to test positive was a female working at Piarco.
She received her results on Wednesday, while two others were tested on Thursday and received their positive results on Friday.
As a result, the entire shift that worked with those 3, which number around 20 people, have since been quarantined and are to be further tested.
The female officer is said to have displayed no symptoms and only knew she was ill because she did a PCR test to travel.
Word is that immigration officers do no undergo routine testing and Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Roshan Parasram said on Saturday that there was no plan to implement routine testing, even with contact-intensive jobs like policing or immigration.
Parasram said “The testing protocol has remained the same. We test persons that present to our facilities with symptoms or those that would have been in primary contact with a known positive case.”
National Security Minister Stuart Young confirmed that he heard of one positive test at Immigration and that there “may have been” additional positive tests.
The minister said that this was normal in an office or work environment, “And has been happening for months all over the public service and private sector office and work environments once someone in a work environment tests positive.”
“It is also why we have asked persons who are not feeling well not to venture into public or go to work,” he said.
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