UPDATE: DOH recommends 14-day quarantine for travelers from HK, Singapore, Australia amid new COVID variant

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) recommended on Saturday that travelers coming from Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia should complete a mandatory 14-day quarantine upon arrival to the Philippines amid the threat of a new coronavirus variant believed to be more infectious.

Duque made the recommendation to President Rodrigo Duterte during the meeting of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management on Emerging Infectious Diseases.

“Ito po ang aming rekomendasyon. Habang nadaragdagan ang mga bansang nag-uulat ng detection ng UK (United Kingdom) new variant, nirerekomenda po ng DOH kasama ng mga eksperto ng Technical Advisory Group ng ating IATF at ng World Health Organization na sa mga manggagaling sa mga bansang may kompirmadong new variant, gawing mandatory ang pagtapos ng 14-day quarantine period sa New Clark City,” said Duque.

(This is our recommendation. While some countries report the detection of the new variant of the virus from the UK, the DOH, together with experts from the Technical Advisory Group of the IATF and the World Health Organization, recommends that travelers from countries with confirmed cases of the new variant should complete the 14-day quarantine period in New Clark City.)

“We recommend strict mandatory quarantine for countries that report the new variant. Travelers coming from countries or areas [such as] Hongkong, Singapore, and Australia with confirmed new variant shall undergo mandatory completion of the 14-day quarantine regardless of the RT-PCR test results,” the Health Secretary also said in the latter part of the meeting.

Aside from this, Duque also recommended to the President that the government should only consider imposing a travel ban on countries where there is already community transmission of the new variant of the virus.

Flights from the United Kingdom, where the variant of the SARS-CoV-2 believed to be more infectious was detected, to the Philippines are suspended starting December 24 to 31.

[ac]