A total of eight staff from the President Office are found infected with COVID-19 virus after the authorities found staff from the parliament are infected with the virus and 80 government staff including staff from the President Office will be tested, said Zaw Htay, Spokesperson of the President Office.

He replied to a question raised by a reporter whether the COVID-19 test will be carried out for all staff from the President Office or not.

“One of the staff quarters had been placed on lockdown as three staff from the parliament lived in it and were found infected with COVID-19. A staff from the President Office lived in that staff quarter and was informed that he lost sense of smell and we tested and found out that he is also infected. So we tested all the staff that lived in it and found eight more staff were found infected,” he said.

“They are not directly dealt with by the state leaders so there is no need to worry about the state leaders,” he said.

Staff are included in the positive patients found in Zabu Thiri Township in Nay Pyi Taw in recent days and people who have close contact with them are kept in quarantine at a guesthouse owned by Nay Pyi Taw development committee. Some staff quarters are placed on lockdown. We don’t announce how many staff are being infected and the name of their departments, said Dr Myat Wunna Soe, Deputy Director General of Public Health Department in Nay Pyi Taw.

At the present, about 700 positive patients have been found in Nay Pyi Taw and over 200 of them are government staff. There are 100 positive patients at the hospitals and more than 430 people are kept in quarantine in the guesthouse and hospitals such as Zeya Thiri and Pyinmanar, he said.