Two more im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers have test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19 push­ing the to­tal to 13 and trig­ger­ing an im­me­di­ate sus­pen­sion of the two re­main­ing shifts ros­tered to man the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port yes­ter­day.

An­oth­er 84 im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers opt­ed not to go to work but in­stead have gone in­to quar­an­tine and are to be test­ed to­day.

Two of the pos­i­tive im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers have been ad­mit­ted to the hos­pi­tal.

Guardian Me­dia spoke with sev­er­al work­ers who con­firmed that they are not go­ing to work be­cause of the wor­ry­ing sit­u­a­tion. In­stead, they said se­nior of­fi­cers con­tact­ed health of­fi­cials who ad­vised they go to health cen­tres which will fa­cil­i­tate and test the im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers as­signed to the Air­port.

On Sat­ur­day night, work­ers said there was one of­fi­cer on du­ty and no re­lief of­fi­cer was as­signed to cov­er af­ter that shift. A sec­ond shift pro­vid­ed re­lief for that lone im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer.

Guardian Me­dia was told that just days ago a flight from Bar­ba­dos land­ed at Pi­ar­co and of­fi­cers from the pass­port of­fices had to as­sist with that flight be­cause of the mas­sive short-staffed im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers.

In to­tal, 65 im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers, 14 im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers Grade II and 5 of­fi­cers Grade III are ex­pect­ed to re­main quar­an­tined.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh but a fe­male voice an­swered his mo­bile and said that Deyals­ingh would be busy for the af­ter­noon, she ad­vised Guardian Me­dia to con­tact Can­dice Al­can­tara Man­ag­er of Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions at the Min­is­ter of Health.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young did not re­spond to calls or texts. Nei­ther did Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley or Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram.

Guardian Me­dia al­so at­tempt­ed to reach Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer, Char­maine Gand­hi-An­drews.

There was no re­sponse.

Gand­hi-An­drews took her va­ca­tion leave this week­end and Guardian Me­dia was told that she re­ceived an ex­emp­tion to leave the coun­try.

Deputy Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer, Derek Craig­well is act­ing CIO and even signed off on a con­fi­den­tial in­ter­nal memo on Fri­day ad­vis­ing that all ro­ta­tion of of­fi­cers was sus­pend­ed but when asked about the out­break and sub­se­quent shut­down, he di­rect­ed all ques­tions to Gand­hi-An­drews.

When told that he was the sub­stan­tive CIO as his boss was on leave, Craig­well said he is not tak­ing over un­til she is of­fi­cial­ly on va­ca­tion to­day (Mon­day).

Last week, Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed that 11 of­fi­cers test­ed pos­i­tive and that an­oth­er 50 were quar­an­tined.

There are ap­prox­i­mate­ly 105 Im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers at Grade I lev­el.

Last week, Guardian Me­dia learned that Im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers are lack­ing per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment (PPE) gear and of­fi­cers de­scribe the de­liv­ery as “spo­radic.”

The of­fi­cers com­plained they are not prop­er­ly so­cial­ly dis­tanced. They said they al­so share booths that are of­ten un­sani­tised be­tween shifts.

Gand­hi-An­drews did not re­spond to ques­tions then ei­ther.

Mean­while, a se­nior im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer told Guardian Me­dia that the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty needs to meet di­rect­ly with of­fi­cers be­cause the pic­ture he is be­ing paint­ed by the Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer, Char­maine Gand­hi-An­drews is gross­ly in­ac­cu­rate.

“The in­for­ma­tion that the min­is­ter is get­ting from the Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer is to­tal­ly and com­plete­ly false and mis­lead­ing as far as the sit­u­a­tion at the im­mi­gra­tion of­fices and the state of pre­pared­ness goes,” the of­fi­cer said.

The of­fi­cer in­di­cat­ed that the min­is­ter’s vis­it need­ed to be im­promp­tu to pre­vent any at­tempts to cov­er up any in­ad­e­qua­cies. The of­fi­cer out­lined that there is al­most no per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment (PPE) for of­fi­cers to use. The of­fi­cer said they were of­ten met with hos­til­i­ty when­ev­er they re­quest­ed the PPE.