MITCH M. LIPA
The City Tourism Office of Sipalay advised resort owners to discourage group bookings, except family reservations, following the continued spike in new COVID cases in Negros Occidental.
This is one measure the local Inter-Agency Task Force decided that can prevent the spread of the coronavirus and for easy contact tracing and containment of a group of persons if one of them tested positive, Sipalay City Tourism Officer Jerrick Lacson said.
Lacson said they have observed difficulty in contact tracing if a group that recently booked a resort was composed of friends or workmates.
June is considered a low season month and only 25 to 30 percent of the resorts are booked. Normally, every end of school year for college and postgraduate schools, there were a lot of group bookings in the Sipalay resorts but, for this year, they have not observed any increase as to bookings. Most of the universities and colleges ended their school year in the first week of June.
Lacson added that several City Hall employees are under isolation pending the release of their swab results.
He said 14 members of the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office were infected with the virus, and emergency cases are being responded to by the respective barangay emergency response teams.
Sipalay logged 16 new COVID cases that brought to 44 the active infections in the city, as of June 13. Total cumulative cases reached 539, with 482 recoveries, and 13 deaths./MML
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Various attractions in Sipalay City*
