Vaccinated official on the ground at Surfside tests positive for Covid

Jose ‘Pepe’ Diaz, chairman of the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners, reveals he tested positive

A vaccinated official who took part in several press conferences at the site of the Miami building collapse has tested positive for Covid-19, his office announced.

Jose “Pepe” Diaz, chairman of the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners, revealed on Sunday night in a statement that he tested positive for the virus as did his chief of staff,  Isidoro Lopez.

“Both started experiencing flu-like symptoms earlier today and will be isolating,” the statement read. “Staff and others who have been in close contact with them will be getting tested between today and tomorrow.”

Contracting Covid-19 after receiving a vaccine is rare but not unheard of, with experts calling these instances “breakthrough cases”. There has been concern about vaccine efficacy in recent months, though, given the rise of highly transmissible variants like the Delta variant.

Mr Diaz, 60, has been a consistent presence at press conferences since the Champlain Towers South building collapsed in Surfside, Florida, on 24 June to give updates on the search and recovery operations.

(AP)

He’s also attended several closed-door meetings with officials in recent weeks, sparking concern about who else could’ve contracted Covid-19 while on the site.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Chief Alan Cominsky previously revealed during a 2 July press conference that six workers from the site tested positive for Covid-19.

The workers were reportedly members of the same task force, but it was not known if they were vaccinated or not.

Investigators are now conducting contact tracing and testing for all workers on the site to determine who else might have contracted the novel virus, Mr Cominsky said.

News of the positive Covid-19 tests come as officials work to locate more people following the sudden collapse of the condo building. The death toll currently stood at 94 people confirmed dead and 22 people still missing.

No one has been found alive since the first hours following the collapse of a portion of the 12-storey building in the middle of the night.