There are now 45 active cases of corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections at the Department of Justice (DOJ) in its main offices on Padre Faura Street in Ermita, Manila.
“I’m getting alarmed,” Justice Secretary Menardo I. Guevarra said Friday night, March 19.
Early Friday morning, March 19, a total of 17 employees of the DOJ’s Witness Protection Program (WPP) were found to be infected with COVID-19, on top of the 17 cases reported last March 18.
Guevarra said the DOJ lockdown that had earlier been imposed may have to be extended beyond March 23. With the lockdown, employees were required to work from home, except for skeletal staff to attend to urgent matters.
Guevarra said the 17 WPP infected personnel “are asymptomatic except for one, and they have all been isolated.”
With the rate of infections going up, he said “the regional, provincial and city prosecution offices have been authorized to take the necessary measures in their respective jurisdictions.”
Since March 2020, there has been a toral of 61 COVID-19 infections at the DOJ, including the 45 current active cases.
One of those infected died but not due to COVID-19, Justice Undersecretary Emmeline Aglipay Villar said last Thursday, March 18.