Baguio extends ban on non-essential travelers until Sept. 26

Non-essential travelers visiting Baguio City will still not be allowed to enter the city until September 26 due to the continuous surge of COVID-19 cases in the famous tourist destination.

Over the weekend, Baguio Mayor Benjamin Magalong issued an executive order on the extension of the imposition of heightened restriction until Sunday, despite the city being under general community quarantine.

In a statement, Mayor Magalong said the implementation of the restrictions on activities and movements need to continue in order to address the prevailing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) situation in the city.

The city health office on September 18 recorded 411 new cases, which is the city’s second-highest daily log after 289 on September 11, 2021.

However, Magalong said that the high numbers could be due to the “dumping of results” after an accumulation caused by a high volume of samples lined up for testing.

The city has also required close contacts of positive patients to undergo reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing.

The local government has recorded 240 average cases per day, with about 92.25 percent or 119 of 129 barangays affected. The city had a total of 21,309 COVID cases since the beginning of the pandemic, recording 17,919 recoveries and 425 deaths. The city has 2,965 active cases.

The city government revealed that the city’s border control teams last week have reported a total of 456 travelers who were banned from entering from the period of Sept. 1 to 12 due to lack of documents proving essential purposes of their travels.

Aside from barring non-essential travels, Mayor Magalong also imposed a liquor ban, and limited dine-in services at 30 percent capacity to curb the spread of the disease.