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The reported spread of a new strain of Covid-19 from the UK led Malacañang to extend restrictions on flights from the UK and cancellation of face-to-face classes.
In a statement Sunday, Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque revealed that President Duterte on December 26 approved the recommendation of the Interagency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) to extend the ban on flights from the United Kingdom by two. more weeks.
He said the restrictions will remain in effect beyond the original December 31 deadline.
Duterte also approved the Department of Health (DOH) suggestion to make the 14-day quarantine mandatory for travelers from areas that reported the new Covid-19 variant, including Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia, regardless of reverse transcription polymerase. . results of the chain reaction test (RT-PCR).
The Quarantine Office and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration will enforce the quarantine and testing protocol.
Pilot study canceled
Duterte also ordered the cancellation of the scheduled pilot study of face-to-face classes to be carried out by the Department of Education (DepEd) starting next month.
“This variant attacks even the young. Then there will be no face-to-face classes, ”Duterte said.
He said he might consider allowing such a scheme by June after the government begins its Covid-19 vaccination campaign for the first quarter of 2021.
Expansion of the ban
The country still has a travel ban on foreign tourists, according to the Department of Foreign Relations (DFA), as it sought to allay fears about the possible entry of the new strain.
“There are IATF resolutions that allow entry to certain classes of visas for foreign citizens, including balikbayans [homecoming Filipinos]”Said the Undersecretary of Foreign Relations for Civil Security and Consular Affairs, Brigido D. Dulay, in a Viber message to BusinessMirror. “Those [foreigners] entry for tourism is not yet allowed. “
Foreign nationals currently authorized to enter the Philippines are those who already have resident visas, the diplomatic corps, heads of multinational companies, those who work for foreign non-governmental organizations, as well as Balikbayans, even those who are already passport holders. of their adopted countries and their foreign spouses and children.
Meanwhile, independent government sources who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak on the matter also said the IATF will meet this morning to discuss “the end result” of an expanded travel ban, if any.
A member of the IATF technical working group had apparently recommended the total closure of the country’s borders due to the new strain of the virus. But, sources said, “We have to consider our OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) whose contracts / visas have expired, homesickness, illness, etc. Do we ban them too? And for how long. There are many issues to be resolved. “
In a related development, the Department of Tourism (DOT) said it “empathizes with affected families who would not be able to holiday with their loved ones from the UK”, even as it released its “unequivocal support” for Duterte’s decision. suspend all flights from the UK.
The Secretary of Tourism, Bernadette Romulo Puyat, in a press release reiterated that the guarantee of public health and safety has priority, even when the IATF carefully reviews the restriction on the entry of foreigners to the country.
All foreign carriers that had carried passengers from the UK, including those with stopovers in other countries such as the Middle East, are also covered by the suspension of flights.
IATF Resolution 90 of December 22 had also ordered passengers in transit from the UK prior to the December 24 flight ban to be quarantined for 14 days at the Athletes’ Village in New Clark. City “despite a negative RT-PCR result. “
The DOT and DFA were the government agencies that had appealed to allow Balikbayans and their foreign spouses and children to return home for the holidays, in an attempt to boost the tourism industry and stimulate the economy.
Local transmission
ALTHOUGH health experts have agreed that the travel ban will help prevent the entry of the new variant that was detected in the UK, they warned that local transmission is still possible.
“So if that happened in the UK it could happen to us [If it happened in UK, it can happen also to us]. Actually, we don’t even have to wait for import. [Actually, we don’t have to wait for that to happen]”Said Dr. Anna Ong-Lim, Division Chief for Infectious and Tropical Diseases, Department of Pediatrics, University of the Philippines School of Medicine during a Department of Health (DOH) media forum.
Lim also said that a new variant is also possible to emerge in the Philippines.
Dr. Cynthia Saloma, Executive Director of the Philippine Genome Center, echoed Lim saying, “It is very possible that locally the virus could mutate.”
“And we have to be vigilant with immunosuppressed patients,” Saloma said, emphasizing the need for genome sequencing to monitor mutations.
Dr. Celia Carlos, Director of the Tropical Medicine Research Institute (RITM), pointed out that viruses like the one that causes Covid-19 are living organisms that can multiply.
“If you are attentive to the sequences that have emerged in other countries, we must also be attentive to the sequences that are emerging in our country,” said Carlos.
“We can never say what kind of changes or mutations can occur even among our isolates. And whether these changes will cause a more serious illness or will not be important at all. “
The Secretary of Health, Francisco T. Duque III, assured that the government will promote genomic surveillance in the country in the face of the threat of the new variant.
“We support all the recommendations of our experts because we need to strengthen the capacity of our genomic surveillance [and to] institutionalize this as a comprehensive system, ”Duque said.
Genome sequencing
SAMPLES from travelers, who will test positive for Covid-19 from affected countries, will be sent to the Philippine Genome Center, the Tropical Medicine Research Institute and the National Institutes of Health at the University of the Philippines, for sequencing of the genome.
The measurement is part of the “bio-surveillance” of the Department of Science and Technology of the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (DOST-PCHRD) to determine if they are carriers of the new strain of Covid-19 from the United Kingdom called B117 , which is said to be more contagious.
PCHRD Executive Director Jamime Montoya said the government will also carry out regular genome sequencing for cases in areas of the country where there are clusters of infection.
“We have to keep in mind that mutations, as medical experts have repeatedly mentioned, will not only occur from outside the Philippines but can also occur within the country, regardless of what is happening outside the country under the burden of the infection by disease, ”Montoya said during Duterte’s meeting with IATF members and medical experts last Saturday.
WHO reserve
The World Health Organization (WHO) supported the genome sequencing initiative, but expressed reservations about travel restrictions.
The WHO country coordinator, Socorro B. Zarate-Escalante, pointed out that international B117 infection remains low and occurs in countries that have “very strict public health interventions.”
“The WHO recommendation for now is not to restrict travel but to ensure that our public health interventions are in place and that the country is ready to mitigate any event of this new strain entering the country,” Escalante said.
Impact of the vaccine
WITH the emergence of B117, Edsel Maurice T. Salvaña, of the government’s Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for Covid-19, said there is no guarantee that existing vaccines or those still in development will work in the new strain.
“There is no guarantee that it will not continue to mutate and then the vaccine will begin to lose efficacy,” Salvaña said.
But based on his initial data on B117, he said that existing vaccines are likely to work on it, as it has minimal variation from the regular Covid-19 strain.
In addition, he said that vaccine developers have already taken note of the new strain and can implement the necessary modifications to their vaccines to combat it.
Currently, the government is negotiating to secure a Covid-19 vaccine from Novavax, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, Moderna, Sinovac and Gamaleya.
Among these manufacturers, Pfizer-BionTech, has applied to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization (US) of its vaccine.
The EUA is necessary before local use of a Covid-19 vaccine or drug is allowed.
