The Philippines may require Covid-19 testing on inbound Chinese travellers as it keeps its borders open to visitors from China, President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr said on Thursday.
“It depends on what the true risk is to us”, Marcos said when asked if there will be additional testing restrictions on travellers from China. “As long as it’s based on science and we feel that there’s a need, we will do it”, he said in a statement released by the Office of the Press Secretary.
China is dismantling its stringent pandemic measures in the face of discontent with Covid Zero rules, triggering a surge in infections. Marcos said that “if the risk is something that is manageable, then I’m sure we can find a way to not completely close our borders to China”.
The Philippines may allow the state of calamity declared in the Southeast Asian country due to Covid-19 to end as scheduled on December 31. Marcos said he’s very hesitant to extend it because “we are not in a state of calamity any more”.Questions on effectiveness follow US screening policy for travellers from China
Earlier in the day, Maria Rosario Vergeire, the officer in charge at the Department of Health, said there’s no need yet to shut the country’s borders or impose tighter Covid-19 restrictions on Chinese visitors. “The direction of this administration is that as much as possible, restrictions should be minimal where we don’t compromise health but we also favour the opening up of the economy,” she said.
The health department is confident that existing health protocols are sufficient. Vergeire said the Philippines is in a “much better position currently” with most of the population fully vaccinated and having learned to adopt good health practices.
China is seeing outbreaks across the country, with almost 37 million people possibly having been infected on a single day last week. The US and Italy joined an increasing number of nations requiring Covid tests for travellers from China. In Italy, health officials said they would test arrivals from China with almost half of passengers on two flights from China to Milan found to have the virus.
ndonesia on Friday removed all remaining measures to control the spread of Covid-19 effective immediately, since most of the country’s population already has antibodies against the disease, President Joko Widodo said.“There will be no more restrictions on gatherings and movements,” the president told a news conference, noting that the decision was taken based on the latest infection figures.
Before the announcement, most mobility restrictions had already been removed for recipients of at least one booster vaccine shot, but authorities still required masks to be worn indoors and use of a Covid-19 tracker app when entering most public spaces.
Jokowi, as the president is known, urged Indonesians to remain vigilant against the virus, including continuing to wear a mask indoors and when in a crowd.
At one point Indonesia had Asia’s highest rate of infections, but daily cases have fallen to below 1,000 most days in the past week, with hospitalisations and deaths relatively low. The world’s fourth-most populous country has recorded more than 6.7 million cases overall, with 160,583 fatalities.Nearly 75 per cent of Indonesians over the age of 6, or 174.7 million people, have received two vaccine shots and about 68.5 million have had at least one booster injection, according to health ministry data. – South china Morning Post
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