The Negros Occidental provincial government will continue to operate on a 100 percent workforce, Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz said Tuesday, April 6.
“The province will continue under a 100 percent workforce, we will not adopt a skeletal force, we don’t see any need so far,” he said.
Bacolod Mayor Evelio Leonardia on Sunday, April 4, issued Executive Order No. 17, Series of 2021 strongly advising all government and private offices to implement a skeletal work force system amid the rising number of COVID-19 cases.
Diaz said the provincial government employees remain healthy, except for some who are recovering at the Mambukal Resort in Murcia.
“We are good to go for another year…Everybody is motivated to work, we will deliver our targets for this year and there is no need for us to slow down or adopt a skeletal force,” he said.
The provincial government has been disinfecting offices on a regular basis and frontliners are tested for COVID-19 every 14 days, he said.
This is to ensure that at the very start of a COVID infection we can arrest its spread, he said.
He said the provincial government employees recovering from COVID-19 at the Mambukal Resort are six doctors and a molecular laboratory senior medical technician from the Teresita L. Jalandoni Provincial Hospital in Silay City, and a swabber from the Provincial Health Office.
There are also four employees of the Isabela Treasurer’s Office and two from the Department of Education in Murcia who tested positive and are recovering at the resort, he added.
Also at the Mambukal Resort are members of the families of the COVID positive government employees.
There are 42 occupants at the Mambukal Resort and only two vacant rooms left, he said.
The provincial government healing center in EB Magalona had 111 COVID-patients, he added.
The quarantine facility in Cadiz City has four occupants – two Special Action Force members and two Locally Stranded Individuals, and the Silay City facility has eight LSIs, and five COVID positive patients, Diaz said.*