Three more employees of the Department of Tourism 6 (DOT-6) including its officer-in-charge (OIC) Christine Mansinares tested positive for coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19, bringing the total cases to 16.

Mansinares, who announced this update to the media yesterday, said out of the 36 total employees, 34 were contact traced wherein 16 tested positive for the virus.

She noted that most of the cases are asymptomatic and only four including the first two cases have mild symptoms.

The first two cases were tested positive last weekend, another 10 on Tuesday, three more on Wednesday, and an additional three cases yesterday. Contact tracing is still ongoing.

Those positive employees are from Guimaras, Iloilo City and Iloilo province while Mansinares’ case is tagged in Bacolod City. Corresponding coordination with the respective local government units was already done for the management of the said cases and their other needs.

The OIC-regional director noted that she is now on isolation in a facility. She said that she and the three other employees who travelled  tested negative for the virus only two weeks ago.

Mansinares said that considering the fast spread of the infection among the DOT-6 employees, she will coordinate with Mayor Jerry P. Treñas so the specimen samples will be submitted to the Philippine Genome Center for sequencing to determine the specific variants that infect them.

She said that they could not identify the source of the infections.

The lady OIC regional director added that of the total 36 employees, 25 of them including some of those who tested positive for the virus are either fully vaccinated or had their first dose of the anti-COVID-19 vaccines.

“So far wala ta serious case, mild tanan kag majority asymptomatic,” said Mansinares.

As of press time, DOT-6’s office, located at Casa Real de Iloilo, is indefinitely closed.

The transacting public can still reach the office through the email address posted on the DOT Western Visayas facebook page while the employees will be on a work-from-home set up. (Glenda Tayona)/WDJ