Baguio allows fully vaccinated travelers entry as city reopens tourism industry

Fully vaccinated individuals will be allowed entry to Baguio City as it reopens its tourism industry, Mayor Benjamin Magalong announced on Monday.

Starting October 25, the city will accept leisure travel applications from fully vaccinated individuals subject to guidelines in an executive order to be issued later.

"Hopefully our reopening will spur economic activity in our city which had almost been nil for the past two months because of the restrictions that we imposed to manage the cases," the mayor told reporters.

Visitors will first have to have an approved registration via visita.baguio.gov.ph.

Magalong said minors aged 12 to 17 accompanied by their elders will be required to have negative antigen or RT-PCR test results.

Those aged 11 years old and below meanwhile will also be required to have negative test results "upon their parents' consent," the city government said.

Minimum public health standards such as wearing of face mask and face shield, social distancing, and frequent handwashing will continue to be required as part of safety measures.

Magalong said the city's COVID-19 cases decreased, allowing Baguio to loosen restrictions, but caution will still be exercised.

"It has not been easy but as we have been doing since the pandemic started, we will continue to strike a balance between managing our cases and giving premium to the health and safety of our constituents on the one hand and keeping our economy afloat and sustaining the people's livelihood on the other," Magalong said.

The mayor said a downtrend in death incidence and number of moderate and severe cases of COVID-19 is expected within the week.

He also said hospital care, isolation facility and oxygen utilization rates have also gone down.

"Hopefully, our situation in so far as the Delta variant is concerned will continue to stabilize in the coming months barring the possibility of a saddle," Magalong said.

"We hope it won't happen to us with the restrictions that we will adopt for tourists and the high vaccination rate we have so far accomplished," he added.

On Monday, Baguio City said 71 new COVID-19 cases were reported, driving up the total tally of coronavirus infections to 28,930.

Of this number, 810 are active, 27,492 recovered, and 628 died.

—KG, GMA News