The Philippine National Police (PNP) has started to identify additional quarantine and isolation facilities inside Camp Crame in Quezon City amid the continuous rise in the number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases among its personnel.
PNP officer-in-charge Lt. Gen. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar said additional facilities are needed to accommodate more police personnel who are testing positive for the coronavirus in the past days.
Since Monday, March 15, the PNP has been recording more than 100 cases per day, the highest was on March 16 wherein the recorded new cases was at 167. On March 17, the new cases were reported to be at 121.
“Based on our data the past days, we also noticed an upsurge of cases among our personnel. In this regard and after consultation with our Chief PNP (Gen. Debold Sinas), we are now identifying buildings and other facilities inside the National Headquarters that would be used as additional quarantine facilities for our personnel,” said Eleazar.
Initially, he said the whole Kiangan Building that includes the Provident Funds and the PSSLAI (Public Safety Savings and Loan Association, Inc,) was identified as additional quarantine facilities for PNP personnel.
But he said there will be no lockdown at Camp Crame. He said they just stepped up the safety measures inside Camp Crame which includes limiting the number of visitors and allowing a modified work scheme for their personnel.
Another measure is to limit the attendance of PNP personnel attending activities inside Camp Crame.
More than 12,631 PNP personnel have been infected by the coronavirus since last year, 34 of them died. Currently, there are 1,105 active cases, most of them are inside isolation facilities that include Sinas who contracted the virus last week.