{"id":248148,"date":"2020-03-13T02:17:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-13T06:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=248148"},"modified":"2020-03-13T02:17:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-13T06:17:00","slug":"house-of-rep-staff-positive-for-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/03\/13\/house-of-rep-staff-positive-for-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"House of Rep staff positive for COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
The Lower House staff was said to have no travel history and no known contact with an infected individual. (File photo:<\/a>
House of Representatives of the Philippines\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Secretary-General Jose Luis Montales confirmed on Friday that a House of Representative employee tested positive for the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) that has been spreading throughout the country since the beginning of the year.<\/p>\n

Montales who sent the text message to House employees, said that the staff who tested positive with COVID-19 works at the Printing Service office.<\/p>\n

The Lower House staff was said to have no travel history and no known contact with an infected individual.<\/p>\n

The employee was also said to have been in and out of the hospital and has several hospital confinements since November 2019 due to a lung ailment. However, the patient was diagnosed with COVID-19 only recently.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo recall, our said employee has been in and out of the hospital since last year for various ailments. He was recently confined for community-acquired pneumonia,\u201d said Montales.<\/p>\n

The patient last reported for work in the House on March 3.<\/p>\n

It was also reported that the patient has siblings who work in different parts of the chamber.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn compliance with the protocols, we will require ALL personnel of the Printing Service to undergo self-quarantine,\u201d Montales said in a message shared to reporters by ACT-CIS party-list Rep. Eric Pineda.<\/p>\n

It is unclear, however, if the employee will be added to the list of 52 COVID-19 patients confirmed in the country. Montales and the office of Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano said to wait for the announcement of the Department of Health (DOH)<\/p>\n

A few House members are undergoing self-quarantine at present due to possible contact with infected individuals. The Senate is also under \u201crestricted access\u201d and all its hearings are currently on hold.<\/p>\n

Several government offices were also temporarily closed down for disinfection and other precautionary measures against the threat of COVID-19.<\/p>\n

On Thursday night, President Rodrigo Duterte ordered a \u201ccommunity quarantine\u201d on Metro Manila starting on March 15 until April 14, while classes and government offices will be suspended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Secretary-General Jose Luis Montales confirmed on Friday that a House of Representative employee tested positive for the novel coronavirus disease …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":176774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-248148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-kathleen-mae-guerrero","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248148"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":248161,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248148\/revisions\/248161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}