Three Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cers have test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19 and 20 oth­er Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cers have since been di­rect­ed to quar­an­tine at home be­cause of con­tact with the in­fect­ed per­son.

Ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion re­ceived by Guardian Me­dia on Sat­ur­day, one fe­male of­fi­cer test­ed pos­i­tive and re­ceived her re­sults on Wednes­day, while two oth­ers were test­ed on Thurs­day and re­ceived their pos­i­tive re­sults on Fri­day.

The fe­male of­fi­cer work­ing at Pi­ar­co dis­played no symp­toms and on­ly knew she was ill be­cause she did a PCR test to trav­el.

Guardian Me­dia was in­formed that the lack of rou­tine test­ing is a ma­jor con­cern among the staff.

The con­cern is that mem­bers of Im­mi­gra­tion could be un­know­ing­ly in­fect­ed and come in­to con­tact with an in­com­ing trav­eller with a neg­a­tive PCR test and then un­wit­ting­ly in­fect that per­son.

The in­fect­ed Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer on­ly knew she was pos­i­tive be­cause she was ex­pect­ed to trav­el and took a test at a pri­vate fa­cil­i­ty. Her test came back pos­i­tive for COVID on Wednes­day.

When those re­sults came in, the whole shift was shut down and those who ex­hib­it­ed symp­toms were test­ed.

Oth­er of­fi­cers were test­ed and by Fri­day two more came back pos­i­tive.

The whole shift, all 20 peo­ple, have sine been quar­an­tined and are to be fur­ther test­ed.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young con­firmed that he heard of one pos­i­tive test at Im­mi­gra­tion and that there "may have been" ad­di­tion­al pos­i­tive tests.

"I have been in­formed of one Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer test­ing pos­i­tive for COVID-19 (there may have been ad­di­tion­al pos­i­tives since) and in keep­ing with the health pro­to­cols the shift whom the of­fi­cer would have been in con­tact with has been asked to quar­an­tine," Young said.

The min­is­ter said that this was nor­mal in an of­fice or work en­vi­ron­ment, "And has been hap­pen­ing for months all over the pub­lic ser­vice and pri­vate sec­tor of­fice and work en­vi­ron­ments once some­one in a work en­vi­ron­ment tests pos­i­tive."

"It is al­so why we have asked per­sons who are not feel­ing well not to ven­ture in­to pub­lic or go to work," he said.

Young did not re­spond to sub­se­quent ques­tions about state-im­ple­ment­ed rou­tine test­ing for peo­ple in con­tact-in­ten­sive jobs.

Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer (CMO) Roshan Paras­ram said on Sat­ur­day that there was no plan to im­ple­ment rou­tine test­ing, even with con­tact-in­ten­sive jobs like polic­ing or im­mi­gra­tion.

"The test­ing pro­to­col has re­mained the same. We test per­sons that present to our fa­cil­i­ties with symp­toms or those that would have been in pri­ma­ry con­tact with a known pos­i­tive case," Paras­ram said.

"Test­ing has al­ways been vol­un­tary and con­tin­ues to be vol­un­tary."

Paras­ram said the State did not man­date that peo­ple wish­ing to trav­el be test­ed.

"Test­ing with­in the pub­lic sys­tem does not cater to per­sons wish­ing to leave the coun­try," he said.

Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer Char­maine Gand­hi-An­drews for con­fir­ma­tion but there was no re­sponse.