Negros not keeping guard down after travel ban lifted

HOME Newly arrived passengers at Bacolod Silay Airport wait for their turn to board government buses that will bring them to their destinations in Negros Occidental. —CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

BACOLOD CITY—The Negros Occidental provincial government is not taking chances as it ramps up measures to monitor arriving passengers now that the travel ban in Western Visayas has been lifted.

Provincial administrator Rayfrando Diaz said designated vehicles would pick up arriving passengers at the province’s seaports and airports, and bring them to their respective destinations.“The province needs to monitor people entering its localities to prevent the spread of the coronavirus,” he said.Diaz appealed to incoming passengers to submit themselves to a swab test and undergo quarantine until their negative COVID-19 test results were released.“This has to be done to prevent the spread of the virus and more deaths. Do this for your own safety and for your families, too,” he said.Incoming passengers, Diaz said, must also coordinate with their respective destinations and secure a contact tracing account. Those who would fail to present a valid contact tracing account must undergo a COVID-19 swab test and must be quarantined upon arrival.

They also have to present a negative test result taken within 72 hours before their departure for Negros Occidental.

Zeaphard Caelian, head of the Provincial Incident Management Team, said 250 passengers from Manila and Cebu arrived in the province on Tuesday.The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) earlier granted the request of Western Visayas officials to suspend inbound travel to the region from April 4 to April 10 to slow down the spread of the virus. This ban was extended and lifted on Tuesday.

‘Safe bubble’

The Department of Health earlier tagged Negros Occidental as a high risk area for COVID-19.Diaz said what the province needed “is a steady but calibrated return of passengers.”

“We want to create a safe bubble in Negros Occidental where movement of residents will be free,” he said.

The province, Diaz said, has 80,000 kits and is procuring 30,000 more to continue testing arriving passengers.

“Testing for COVID-19 is the next best thing with the lack of COVID-19 vaccines. We need to identify, isolate and cure,” he said. —CARLA GOMEZ INQ