SAN JUAN, LA UNION–The Department of Tourism stressed that they haven’t received reports of Chinese visitors testing positive with Covid 19 after arriving here last Tuesday.
In a press conference, Tourism Director Paulo Benito Tugbang said that as far as Secretary Maria Christina Frasco is concerned the tourists were all cleared by the Bureau of Quarantine and the Department of Health.
The 190 Chinese visitors arrived via Xiamen Airlines flight MF819 last 24 January.
However, Tugbang said the Chinese contingents are constantly being monitored as part of the protocol to make sure that no one will show symptoms of Covid 19.
“We are asking reports from their Chinese tour operators that are accompanying the tourists,” he added.
Earlier, Secretary Frasco said she was elated that China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism has included the Philippines to be among the 20 nations identified to be part of its pilot areas for outbound tourism group tours.
Aside from the Philippines, neighboring ASEAN nations such as Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Laos, as well as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, Russia, Switzerland, Hungary, New Zealand, Argentina, Cuba, and Fiji are part of the selection.
In his New Year video address, President Xi Jinping admitted that China’s most recent virus surge had been fierce and fast, and it was no understatement, a CBS News report said.
Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 80 percent of China’s population — a population of more than 1.4 billion people or four times that of the United States — has now been infected with the virus. Most of those infections happened since last