(File image courtesy of PIO Negros Occidental)
BACOLOD CITY – The Negros Occidental provincial government continues to offer free coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) test for returning residents on a voluntary basis as the two-week travel moratorium in Western Visayas ends on Tuesday.
Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz II said those with expired reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) negative test results will still be accepted in Negros Occidental.
“They may have long obtained the result and possibly, it’s already beyond 72 hours. We are advising them not to get a new one from their point of origin, we will still accept them. We will offer a free swab test,” he said in an interview with Capitol reporters.
Diaz, however, said the passengers must submit themselves to a swab test voluntarily.
“Not for anything else, but for the safety of their families and their own selves,” he added.
Resolution 101 of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID), which harmonized national travel protocols for land, air, and sea, stated that Covid-19 testing shall not be mandatory for domestic travelers except if the local government unit (LGU) of destination will require testing as a requirement before travel.
Considering this, Diaz said the provincial government will implement the swab test upon arrival “in a way that is voluntary”.
“I hope the arriving passengers will understand. We have to do this. This will not stop if people will continue arriving without being screened and tested at the point of entry,” he added.
In a memorandum, Diaz informed airlines and shipping vessels that the province will accept all passengers whose names appear on their passenger manifest and have been endorsed by the destination LGU.
He also advised inbound travelers to coordinate with their destination LGU and secure an approved S-PaSS and verified StaySafe account.
In the past three weeks, Negros Occidental has been experiencing a spike in cases, even logging up to three digits in new cases daily in the past several days.
However, the IATF-EID denied the request of Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson on April 9 to place Negros Occidental under general community quarantine as the province’s numbers do not qualify for the escalation of its current status of modified general community quarantine. (PNA)
