The Bacolod Casino Filipino has been temporarily closed for disinfection and sanitation after 79 of its employees tested positive for COVID-19 since May, its branch manager Jose Marciano Bautista said Sunday, June 13.
The Casino, located at L ‘Fisher Hotel at Lacson Street, stopped operations Saturday and may hopefully reopen by mid-week, he said.
The Casino is doing everything it can to help its employees, Bautista said.
All of the about 360 organic and non organic employees of the Casino have already been tested for COVID-19, he said.
“Rest assured that we are doing everything to contain this, it’s more on community acquired. If ever there is a transmission here we are stopping it,” he said.
“Rest assured that the Casino is very, very safe because we follow all the protocols and it was even checked by the EOC (Emergency Operations Center of Bacolod),” he said.
City Administrator Em Ang, executive director of the EOC, said the number of Casino employees who tested positive does not include close contacts. There are family members who have also tested positive, she said.
Ang said she had recommended the closure of the Casino when the positive cases were 20 plus and the City Legal Office sent its management a letter.
The EOC held a virtual meeting with the Casino management on Friday and raised the need for closure, she said.
An EOC team led by Dr. Chris Sorongon inspected the Casino to review the workplace safety measures and the Casino wrote to us that they will close for three days, she said.
Ang said the Casino is linked to the BaCTrac (Bacolod City Contact Tracing) system but its entries were only up to June 8.
“We asked them why they did not have login history for several days and they said they had a problem with the cellphone or computer being used for the BacCTrac so they used a manual logbook,” she said.
The EOC has asked the Casino to submit the manual logbook so they can contact trace those who had visited the facility, she said.*