LETTER: International and domestic tourism has ground to a halt amid the Covid-19 pandemic. A total of 221.3 million domestic visitors came to Malaysia in 2018 with an expenditure of RM92.56 billion.
Restarting domestic tourism is vital for the survival of hotels. When a hotel opens, it needs to set up many facilities. One of the most common facilities is the swimming pool. But is it safe?
According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there is no evidence to show that Covid-19 can spread via recreational water areas such as a swimming pool. However, that comes with a caveat: the water must be sanitised.
In Malaysia, hotels must comply with local guidelines. City Hall has guidelines specifying the required chlorine and pH levels that must be established in swimming pools.
If the guidelines are followed, the pools are safe to swim in, with or without the presence of Covid-19. So why aren't our swimming pools open to the public yet? Naturally, the Health Ministry is being cautious.
Standard operating procedures (SOP) must be formulated not only for pools at hotels, but also for condominiums and sports clubs.
There are environmental and industry challenges that must be overcome.
From an environmental perspective, is it safe to swim immediately after rain, or should there be a short interval to let the fresh water be diluted with treated water?
From an industry perspective, there are more challenges. What is the best test equipment to use? Should it be a digital test set or is a colorimeter sufficient? How many times a day should the water be tested? Most hotels test at least
once a day, many twice a day and some up to five times a day.
These test frequencies may be possible for hotels, as they have poolside staff. But what about condominiums and sports clubs?
What is the practical testing frequency for a facility that may not have a full-time attendant?
Another area that needs to be addressed is the method of pool sanitisation: manual versus semi-automated versus controlled systems. All have their advantages and disadvantages. Manual dosing
performed daily is the cheapest and the most common method in Malaysia, if not globally.
However, condominiums and other facilities may have a gap of two or three days. Our definition of semi-automated is the use of dosing pumps to inject chlorine or using salt water chlorinators to produce chlorine.
The advantage of semi-automated systems is that the pools are always being sanitised. The disadvantage for manual and semi-automated is that neither of them can respond to events such as extremely hot weather, a large number of bathers or heavy rain. Controlled systems are where an automatic control machine such as a parts-per-million controller uses probes to check the pool chlorine and pH levels, and automatically adjust them as required.
Rest assured, all three sanitising methods can provide safe pools. However, the testing frequency requirement for each method is different and may require different rules.
My opinion is that digital test kits may become mandatory for public pool facilities, and testing frequency will be increased to at least twice a day. With minor changes to procedures, I believe many hotels are well-positioned to reopen their pools as soon as the SOPs are released.
BRUCE HOPE
KUALA LUMPUR
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times