APP
PESHAWAR
The district administration of Mansehra has allowed reopening of hotels in tourist hotspots Naran, Kaghan and Shogran of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, three days after the properties were sealed following emergence of Covid-19 cases among staff.
The hotels were allowed to reopen after disinfecting their premises with chlorine spray and quarantining the staff members who tested positive for the coronavirus.
The decision to unseal the hotels was taken in view of large numbers of tourists heading to the tourist sites in the northern districts, Mansehra Additional Deputy Commissioner Maqbool Hussain told the media.
The hotel managements were also issued strict instructions to follow the SOPs set for Covid-19, failing which legal action will be taken against them.
He said that management of five hotels who had broken the seals placed by the district administration had been booked. The hotels, however, have been allowed to remain open. The Covid-19 patients at the hotels had been quarantined in self-isolation, he added.
He said the flow of tourists to the area was high and the administration was trying to implement SOPs to control the spread of the virus adding that tourists were cooperating with the authorities.
A large-scale testing in tourists’ spots has also been started, with nearly 33,000 tests having been conducted in Naran and Nathia Gali.
On Sunday, the Mansehra district administration had sealed all hotels in Shogran, Naran and Kaghan after 47 Covid-19 cases were reported at private hotels located in the tourist destinations.
According to officials, 48 hotels, including 22 main businesses and their respective branches, had been sealed at the three tourist spots and the infected patients had been quarantined at the hotels.
Approximately 627,000 tourists entered Hazara and Malakand divisions after the government lifted Covid-19 restrictions, a report by the KP tourism department said.
“Tourists’ inflow to Abbottabad and Galiyat was high as compared to other areas as more than 356,000 entered the areas in the first 12 days,” the report read.
