Only 53% of tourism workers fully vaxxed, DOT says

Only a little more than half of the country’s tourism workers have been fully vaccinated, but about 97 percent of workers in Department of Tourism (DOT) accredited restaurants, hotels, tour operators and travel agencies are fully inoculated. Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat said on Thursday that the DOT aimed to have tourism workers fully vaccinated by December, including informal workers like souvenir sellers and pedicab drivers. Puyat said the DOT was currently recommending to Health Secretary Francisco Duque III and vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., the areas with tourist workers awaiting vaccine supplies. She noted that there are local government units that still refuse to reopen tourist destinations unless employees and customers are vaccinated or undergo costly RT-PCR (reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) tests.

—JEROME ANING