Symantec issues with Catalina

We have been posting here for years that anti-virus products, and so-called security products interfere with the built-in security in macOS, with other applications, and in general this conflict slows the Mac performance. All they can report are false positives because there are no viruses presently infecting user Macs.

The recommendation is to entirely remove all installed anti-virus products, and especially Symantec. Like others over the years, you will likely see an immediate improvement in how the operating system performs, and any aberrant application behavior from compatible applications will cease.

If it's for Macs this is what you should know: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community.  

The least invasive antivirus app for Macs seems to be ClamX.

Is the IT personnel trying to do the reinstallation? If not then let them do it. In the meantime you can go about getting some work done with it being reinstalled. Also ask them to come to the Apple Support Communities and learn about antivirus, cleaning, optimizing and speed-up apps. That is if they are into learning anything new.

Since the whole point of PCI is not security but rather checkboxes and off-loading risks, have your legal folks review whether the use of the built-in Apple anti-malware including the Catalina anti-malware defenses are sufficient coverage for the local requirements. Put differently, this isn't really a technical question at its core, it's centrally a risk-shifting question.

What a bohica deal to be forced to run anti-virus on a Mac, because people think everything is a PC.

There is one exception, and that is to check files transferred from a Windows box to the Mac, in case those files contain a virus, and one stops the infestation issue of transferring those files to other PC users.

The nice thing about empty offices is that you can actually get some work done without distractions.