Davao City will allow entry of fully-vaccinated travelers without COVID-19 test results

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DAVAO CITY, Davao del Sur, Philippines – The city government here has decided to allow the entry of full-vaccinated travelers without COVID-19 test results, following the resolution issued by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF).

This developed as Mayor Sara Z. Duterte said Monday she would refer to the Department of Health (DOH) the issue of nurses resigning from the Southern Philippines Medical Center, the biggest government-run hospital in Mindanao, which caters to COVID-19 patients.

The mayor issued the statement about after a caller informed her that some nurses of the hospital decided to resign because of the problem in regularization.

In her weekly radio program, Duterte said the city government would have to follow all orders from the national government in relation to curbing the spread of COVID-19.

“As has been long agreed, we will follow all issuances of the national government so that the people will not get confused,” she said.

This was in reference to IATF Resolution 124-B requiring travelers within the country to only present their vaccination cards to enter certain areas instead of presenting negative RT-PCR test results.

The resolution also added that the vaccination requirement could only be accepted two weeks after the individual got the second dose of the vaccine.

But the mayor said that based on the IATF resolution the order only covered travel within areas with more lax quarantine classification.

Duterte said she would also refer the issue before the city council to make the necessary amendments to the ordinance requiring inbound travelers from other regions to present negative RT-PCR results on entering the city.

The mayor expressed hope that the surge in the cases of COVID here would slowly go down this month, following weeks of  the city being under modified enhanced community quarantine.

She said that the surge that took place here late last year until early this year took at least four months to go down under strict quarantine — at a time when vaccines were not yet available.

At present, the city government has been ramping up inoculation of residents, at times even going beyond its 10,000 daily target to as many as 13,000.

“Hopefully, we will not be under MECQ [by the end of July]. There will also be discussions whether we will appeal the MECQ classification given that we have been rolling out our vaccines faster, among other things,” Duterte said.

But she pointed out that despite the fast rollout of vaccines, the city government would still depend on their availability here.

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