Travelers who arrived in Bacolod City Tuesday, April 20, with expired COVID-19 negative results were swabbed for RT-PCR tests, City Administrator Em Ang said.
She said 20 passengers arrived from Manila and several others from Cebu.
Bacolod City requires arriving passengers to submit negative RT-PCR test results taken within 72 hours before their departure.
However, many had expired test results after their trips were cancelled when a moratorium on travel to Western Visayas was declared, Ang said.
The travel moratorium ended on Monday, April 19.
To spare these passenger from spending again for expensive RT-PCR tests before departure for Bacolod, the city has offered to have them swabbed for free on arrival, she said.
The passengers then have the option to go on quarantine at a hotel or for free at ETCS 4 for one day while they wait for the RT-PCR test results, she said.
However, the city government can only advise them to agree to facility quarantine because under Inter-Agency Task Force Resolution 101 quarantine on arrival is not allowed, Ang said.
There are some who don’t want to go home to their families right away for fear that they might give them the virus and opt to wait for their test results in a facility, she said.
Those who refuse to be facility quarantined have to go on home quarantine and they will be informed as soon as their test results are out, Ang said.
Passengers who do not have expired RT-PCR test results are required to submit negative test results taken 72 hours before departure for Bacolod, she said.*