COVID-19 has caused the temporary lockdown of a mall and two banks in Kabankalan City, Mayor Pedro Zayco said Monday, May 31.
Zayco said the Gaisano mall temporary closed last week but a section has since reopened with a skeleton force.
The Gaisano stores closed temporarily, but those of the tenants at the mall remained open, he said.
He said about 63 employees from the mall and others who were contact traced have tested positive for the virus. Only the Gaisano employees who have tested negative have been allowed to return to work, he added.
The city government shouldered the cost of the mass testing of all of its employees, and conducted massive contact tracing, Zayco said.
He said 12 employees of the BDO branch at Guanzon Street and one at the Philippine National Bank in Kabankalan also tested positive.
Both banks have temporarily closed.
The rest of the PNB employees will be swabbed for COVID-19 tests, he said. They plan to transfer staff from other branches to man the bank in Kabankalan in the meantime, Zayco said.
Our Inter-Agency Task Force wants the staff who will be assigned to the PNB Kabankalan branch to present negative RT-PCR test results, Zayco said.
Meanwhile, BDO transactions are now being undertaken at its City Mall branch in Kabankalan, the mayor added.*