300 DOH employees tested positive for COVID-19 —Vergeire

Some 300 Department of Health (DOH) employees have tested positive for COVID-19 while almost 400 are undergoing quarantine, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said Tuesday.

“Marami rin po infected, marami rin po naka quarantine kaya ngayon po medyo mababa po yung workforce namin. But we are still doing and continuing work,” Vergeire said in a radio interview.

(Many have been infected and a lot are undergoing quarantine. That’s why our workforce is somewhat low at this time, but we are still doing and continuing work.)

Vergeire said DOH operations were not really affected as each unit has a skeleton workforce.

Meanwhile, the undersecretary said many of the agency’s personnel are starting to return to work due to the new policy shortening the isolation and quarantine period for fully vaccinated healthcare workers infected with or exposed to COVID-19.

“But because of this new policy direction that we have, ‘yung shift, nakapagbawas na po kami and we are slowly nakakapag-return sa mga bilang ng mga tao sa bawat opisina,” she said.

(Because of this new policy direction that we have, we have decreased the number of quarantined workers and people are slowly able to return to their offices.)

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III earlier said the shortened isolation for medical frontliners is discretionary after several sectors expressed opposition to it.

On Monday, the country logged 37,070 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the nationwide tally to 3,242,374 and active cases to 290,938. —KBK, GMA News