Four officers in isolation inside the 'Rio Miño' patrol boat in Almeria Port

Four officers in isolation inside the 'Rio Miño' patrol boat in Almeria Port

Four officers in isolation inside the 'Rio Miño' patrol boat in Almeria Port. image: guardia civil

Four Guardia Civil officers from the ‘Rio Miño’ patrol boat remain in isolation inside the vessel docked in Almeria Port after two tested positive for coronavirus

A total of four Guardia Civil officers remain in isolation inside the Maritime Service patrol boat ‘Río Miño’, which is docked in the port of Almeria, after two of them returned positive results when tested for coronavirus, as reported to Efe by Guardia Civil sources.

The vessel, which is used to combat illegal immigration in the Alboran Sea, is currently docked in the port of Almeria after it had originally called in to carry out a technical review before the tests took place.

It is reported that both officers and external civilian personnel work on the boat regularly, and that it is necessary to have been vaccinated or show a negative test result before boarding, but that the two officers had returned positive results, and two others had shown symptoms, and as a result, all four were confined to their cabins to isolate, not having contact with the rest of the crew, and the boat will remain in the dock for the time being.

In a statement from the Guardia Civil’s union, AUGC, it confirmed that the boat is crewed by members of the Guardia Civil’s Maritime Service, along with and the company ‘Gauzon Iberica, SL’, which provides personnel for navigational services to the force.

They confirmed that around 10pm last Sunday, July 25, a member of the crew began to show symptoms of Covid, “spreading to other crew members during Monday,” and that on Tuesday July 26, the entire crew underwent PCR tests in a medical centre in Almeria, which resulted in five positives.

AUGC pointed out that the positive personnel of the company Gauzón Ibérico, SL were evacuated, “However, the officers with a positive result have been confined to the patrol boat, a measure that is ineffective given that they share facilities such as bathrooms with the healthy crew members, where it is very difficult to recycle the air due to the lack of operable windows, and the air system conditioning is general, through ducts, and without filters.”

AUGC went on to say that it considers that “no measures have been taken to safeguard the health of the crew, beyond the confinement of the positives, that, as we have just said, is not only ineffective but counterproductive, because it will end up infecting all the crew.”

Official letters have reportedly already been sent to both the Government Delegation of the Junta de Andalucia, as well as the Guardia Civil Command in Almeria, urgently requesting measures to solve the situation involving the members of the patrol boat ‘Río Miño’, as reported by diariodealmeria.es.

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Written by

Chris King

Originally from Wales, Chris spent years on the Costa del Sol before moving to the Algarve where he is a web reporter for The Euro Weekly News covering international and Spanish national news. Got a news story you want to share? Then get in touch at editorial@euroweeklynews.com

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