Davao City council building on week-long lockdown due to COVID-19 cases

The Davao City council building will be on lockdown for a week starting Monday, May 31, after over a dozen local government workers tested positive for COVID-19.

The entire Sangguniang Panlungsod building on San Pedro Street would be closed to the public until June 6.

The lockdown would also affect the City Treasurer’s Office, City Assessor’s Office, Business Bureau, and City Civil Registrar’s Office, which are all housed in the SP Building.

Dr. Michelle Schlosser of the Davao City Inter-Agency Task Force on COVID-19 said all the local government offices in the SP Building were separately handed lockdown notices on Friday.

Schlosser said 13 employees holding office at the SP Building were brought to local COVID-19 facilities, and all the staff in the vice mayor’s and councilors’ offices were required to undergo swab tests.

BPO office shut down

The announcement was made on Friday, May 28, the same day Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte ordered the two-week shutdown of a major business processing outsourcing company in the city after dozens of its workers contracted COVID-19.

The Davao branch of Teleperformance had to be temporarily shut down after 46 workers tested positive for COVID-19 this week.

Schlosser said local officials feared a surge in COVID-19 cases as Teleperformance workers tested positive for the virus one after the other in a matter of days.

“It’s quite a critical number, and given that the company employs many call center workers,” she said.

Schlosser said the call center failed to provide sufficient information that could help contact tracers make a comprehensive close contact list.

The infected have to be quarantined for two weeks, and the company was required to disinfect the call center and its facilities.

The company is estimated to have at least 1,000 workers, mostly call center agents who have been working from home since the start of the pandemic in 2020. – Rappler.com