Sascha Wil­son

An em­ploy­ee of the ANSA McAL Cen­tre in Ch­agua­nas has test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19.

In a state­ment, the ANSA McAL Group con­firmed that the em­ploy­ee was re­ceiv­ing med­ical treat­ment and is do­ing well. The com­pa­ny not­ed that the em­ploy­ee had not worked at the fa­cil­i­ty since Ju­ly 17. How­ev­er, he came in con­tact with some­one who test­ed pos­i­tive on Ju­ly 19 and fell ill the fol­low­ing day. In keep­ing with the com­pa­ny’s pro­to­cols, the em­ploy­ee did not re­port to work.

“This has con­tained the lev­el of risk to work­ers,” the com­pa­ny stat­ed.

The em­ploy­ee went to the doc­tor and was fur­nished with sick leave for one week.

“It has now been dis­cov­ered that un­for­tu­nate­ly, our em­ploy­ee has test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19.”

The com­pa­ny did not di­vulge fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on the em­ploy­ee due to its med­ical pri­va­cy rules.

The com­pa­ny said it was ad­vised by the Min­istry of Health that based on its strin­gent group pro­to­cols which were im­ple­ment­ed since the end of March and the time­line list­ed above, there was no need for fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion or con­tact trac­ing at the fa­cil­i­ty.

Since the ar­rival of this pan­dem­ic in the coun­try, the com­pa­ny as­sured that it had been fol­low­ing med­ical pro­to­cols and has con­tin­ued to im­ple­ment strict so­cial dis­tanc­ing pro­ce­dures and hy­giene through­out all group com­pa­nies. The com­pa­ny said it will con­tin­ue to con­sult with health of­fi­cials and ex­perts in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal to the group as this sit­u­a­tion evolves.

Mean­while, COVID-19 jit­ters spread through the com­mu­ni­ty of Dun­can Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, af­ter the pop­u­lar Len Hap Su­per­mar­ket closed for sani­ti­sa­tion be­cause a sus­pect­ed COVID-19 pos­i­tive mer­chan­dis­er had vis­it­ed the premis­es.

Len Hap Su­per­mar­ket, lo­cat­ed along the SS Erin Road, was not ad­vised by the min­istry to close its busi­ness but de­cid­ed to do so to sani­tise the premis­es out of an abun­dance of cau­tion.

In a state­ment, the su­per­mar­ket said they closed to de­con­t­a­m­i­nate and clean the busi­ness place.

“This ac­tion has be­come nec­es­sary since we have been ad­vised that a mer­chan­dis­er from an­oth­er com­pa­ny who vis­it­ed the store last week may be COVID pos­i­tive. Len Hap has not been or­dered to close or test any­one from our com­pa­ny, how­ev­er, out of an abun­dance of cau­tion all nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions are be­ing tak­en. We wish to re­it­er­ate that no em­ploy­ee of Len Hap has been test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID.”

A Health Min­istry of­fi­cial con­tact­ed the su­per­mar­ket own­ers and no­ti­fied them of the sit­u­a­tion but nei­ther the name of the mer­chan­dis­er nor the date of the vis­it was dis­closed. The health of­fi­cial al­so ad­vised them to en­sure they ad­here to all COVID pro­to­cols.

The su­per­mar­ket has as­sured it has put in place all the safe­ty pre­cau­tions since the start of the pan­dem­ic and urged every­one to con­tin­ue to prac­tice phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing, wash­ing hands and wear­ing masks, adding it will re­open for busi­ness to­day.

Mean­while, an­oth­er south com­pa­ny which owns a chain of su­per­mar­kets, Anand Low Price, yes­ter­day de­bunked ru­mours its su­per­mar­kets were closed for sani­ti­sa­tion.

“Since the out­break of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, we have tak­en the con­sci­en­tious de­ci­sion to en­sure that all of our premis­es are sani­tised dai­ly in keep­ing with es­tab­lished pro­to­cols. These pre­cau­tion­ary safe­ty mea­sures re­main in place at all five of our lo­ca­tions to en­sure prop­er so­cial dis­tanc­ing and sani­ti­sa­tion is in ef­fect.”

The com­pa­ny as­sured that its cus­tomers’ health and safe­ty is of great pri­or­i­ty.

Sev­er­al places, in­clud­ing busi­ness­es and schools, have been closed with­in the past two weeks for sani­ti­sa­tion as the Health Min­istry car­ries out its con­tact trac­ing ex­er­cise on the lat­est cas­es.