Philippines Extends Travel Ban to Prevent Entry of New COVID-19 Strain

MANILA – The Philippines on Tuesday extended the travel ban to 20 countries that have reported a new, more infectious coronavirus variant first seen in the UK.

The travel ban, which initially covered only Great Britain, has been extended to cover the following territories as of midnight on December 29, 2020, the Manila International Airport Authority said.

• UK
• South Africa
• Switzerland
• Italy
• Denmark
• Israel
• Hong Kong
• Spain
• Ireland
• Netherlands
• Singapore
• Lebanon
• Japan
• Canada
• Germany
• Sweden
• Australia
• France
• Iceland
• South Korea

Passengers already in transit or who have been in any of the marked countries within 14 days of entering the Phils and arriving before December 30 “will be allowed entry, but will be subject to strict quarantine protocols and testing (mandatory 14-day quarantine at OWWA and DOT accredited facilities) despite getting a negative RT-PCR result, “MIAA said on Facebook.

With more than 470,000 infections, the Philippines has the second highest number of COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia, after Indonesia.

However, neither the UK nor the South African variant has been detected there yet.

In an emergency meeting with health experts and government officials, President Rodrigo Duterte last Saturday extended an existing ban on flights from Britain for 2 weeks until mid-January.

It also ordered a 14-day quarantine for passengers who came to or transited Britain, and from territories where the most infectious COVID-19 variant first identified there was detected, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and Japan.

Duterte promised free vaccines for the country’s 108 million people, and shipments and inoculation will begin in May, late in other nations’ schedules.

“If (in the meantime) the severity in the numbers demands that we take immediate corrective measures, then we should return to the lockdown,” he said.

In mid-March, the Philippines imposed one of the longest and toughest coronavirus lockdowns in the world, which was gradually relaxed in June to allow for a slow reopening of the economy.

The Philippines is in talks to procure around 80 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, including those from Britain’s Pfizer Inc, Moderna, and AstraZeneca, as well as Johnson & Johnson, India’s Novavax Inc, China’s Sinovac and the Gamaleya Institute of Russia.

– With a Reuters report