The agreement on the lifting of the negative RT-PCR requirement reached between Mayor Evelio Leonardia and Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson will take effect Feb. 1 as the province and the highly-urbanized city will remain on Alert Level 3 until Feb. 15.
Emergency Operations Center executive director Em Ang said that, as of Jan. 30, a lot of Manila passengers bound for Bacolod City are lining up for their safe conduct pass approval, including Councilor Carl Lopez.
On Jan. 28, Leonardia and Lacson agreed to set aside the negative RT-PCR for inbound travelers from Manila to Bacolod City. The province will only require passengers bound to the different towns and cities of Negros Occidental to undergo Rapid Antigen Test upon arrival at the Bacolod-Silay Airport.
The new travel policy for Bacolod passengers will ensure that the virus will not enter the city since passengers found reactive to the RAT from their place of origin will then be subjected to RT-PCR testing and will not be allowed to board the plane.
Meanwhile, the fresh COVID cases in Bacolod are still on triple digits, as of the Sunday bulletin of the Department of Health 6.
Ang said Bacolod logged 133 fresh infections, and the total active cases now stood at 2,479.
Sixty percent of the active cases are in the different isolation facilities and 30 percent on home isolation, while others are isolating in hotels and a few admitted in the hospitals.
Since Manila will be downgraded to Alert Level 2 starting Feb. 1, Ang said she hopes that within 15 days, Bacolod and Negros Occidental will also experience a downtrend of new cases so that the alert level classification can be downgraded./MML
