By Bruce Hope

International and domestic tourism ground to a halt in the midst of the COVID-19 global pandemic. A total of 221.3 million domestic visitors were recorded for Malaysia in 2018 with expenditure of RM92.56 billion.

Restarting domestic tourism is vital for the survival of hotels. When a hotel opens it will need as many facilities available as possible. One of the most common facilities is the swimming pool. But is it safe?

Guidelines for swimming pools

According to the United States Centre for Disease Control (US CDC), there is no evidence that COVID-19 can spread via recreational water such as a swimming pool. However, that comes with a caveat. The water must be properly sanitised.

In Malaysia, all hotels must comply with local guidelines. In Kuala Lumpur, the local municipal authority, Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur (DBKL), has guidelines specifying the required chlorine and pH levels that must be followed for swimming pools. If the guidelines are followed, then the pools are safe to swim in, COVID-19 or not.

So, why aren’t Malaysian swimming pools open to the public yet? Naturally the Ministry of Health is being cautious. Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) need to be formulated that are applicable not only to hotel pools, but condominiums, sports clubs and so forth. There are environmental and industry challenges that need to be overcome.

From an environmental perspective, as an example, is it safe to swim immediately after a deluge of rain, or should there be a short interval to let the freshwater be diluted with the treated water?

Sanitising the swimming pool

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 still sufficient? How many times per day should the water be tested?

Most hotels test at least once per day, many twice per day and some up to five (5) times per day. These test frequencies may be possible for hotels as they have staff at the poolside. But what about condominiums and sports clubs? What is the possible or practical testing frequency for a facility which may not have a full time attendant?

Another area that may need to be addressed is the method of pool sanitising: manual vs semi-automated vs controlled systems. All have their advantages and disadvantages. Manual dosing is the cheapest and is the most common method in Malaysia, if not globally. Manual dosing is generally performed daily for hotels; 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 both manual and semi-automated is that neither of them can respond to events such as extremely hot weather, large numbers of bathers or heavy rain.

Controlled systems are where an automatic control machine such as a PPM controller uses probes to check the pool chlorine and pH levels, and automatically adjusts as required.

Digital test kits

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.

Our opinion is that digital test kits may become mandatory for public pool facilities, and testing frequency will be increased to at least twice per day. With minor changes to their procedures, we believe many hotels are well placed to reopen their pools as soon as the SOPs have been released.

As such, we, from a service provider perspective, look forward to the restart of the Malaysian domestic tourism and the pools that we service being used once more.

-- BERNAMA

Bruce Hope is owner and CEO of Beribu Jaya, the leading swimming pool services company in Kuala Lumpur. Hope, a New Zealander, who has been in and around Malaysia since 2003, is passionate about all things outdoors and in his spare time does marine conservation.