DOWNTOWN RUSH: Vehicles and people crowd a section of a downtown street in Dagupan City on Dec. 30, 2021 as residents do last-minute shopping for fruits and other food items to welcome the New Year. Pangasinan province and Dagupan City have reimposed testing requirements and tighter border checks to stop the spread of COVID-19. —WILLIE LOMIBAO
SAN ANTONIO, Zambales, Philippines — The provincial government on Wednesday issued a stricter travel advisory, requiring fully vaccinated travelers to present negative rapid antigen test results before being allowed entry into the province.
The move was in anticipation of a surge in COVID-19 cases due to the highly contagious Omicron variant of COVID-19.
Travelers from Metro Manila, which was placed under the more stringent Alert Level 3, are now prohibited to enter the province, along with children below 7 years old.
Fully vaccinated guests from other areas must show negative results of rapid antigen test taken 24 hours before arriving in the province.
Unvaccinated guests or those partially vaccinated individuals coming from areas under the less restrictive alert level 2, are also required to show negative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests taken 48 hours prior to their travel to the province.
Zambales remained under alert level 2 despite experiencing another wave of COVID-19 infections.
La Union fundraiser
On Tuesday, it recorded 33 new cases, its highest single-day tally in the last three months. Its active infections stood at 50.In La Union province, a confirmed COVID-19 case in San Juan town was traced to a fundraiser that was held at a food complex there last month and was attended by two close contacts of Gwyneth Anne Chua, the girl who breached quarantine protocols after arriving from the United States and who later tested positive for the virus, authorities said on Tuesday.
In a statement, the provincial government of La Union said employees of the food complex had already undergone isolation and were subjected to RT-PCR tests while contact tracing was still underway.
The La Union government said it was the Department of Tourism (DOT) that confirmed the incident, adding that the benefit concert for victims of Typhoon “Odette” (international name: Rai) was held on Dec. 29, 2021, or days after Chua and her close contacts attended a party at Barangay Poblacion in Makati City.
“To date, there is one COVID-19 confirmed positive case from the close contacts in the establishment. However, there is no confirmed case of the COVID-19 Omicron variant yet,” the La Union government said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.
It said local authorities, including policemen and DOT representatives in the region, inspected the venue of the fundraising event on Dec. 31, 2021 to determine if the establishment breached health protocols.
People who went to the place from Dec. 29, 2021 to Dec. 30, 2021 were asked to monitor themselves and approach any health facilities or coordinate with the provincial health office for easy contact tracing.
Border checks
The provincial government also warned other tourism-related establishments against violating quarantine protocols and minimum health standards to avoid getting penalized or shut down.
In Bulacan province, at least 50 policemen were assigned in various checkpoints to monitor the borders it shares with Metro Manila and the provinces of Pampanga and Nueva Ecija.
Bulacan’s alert status was elevated from level 2 to level 3 from Jan. 5 to Jan. 15 in response to the sharp increase in its COVID-19 cases after the holiday season.
As of Wednesday, Bulacan had recorded 614 active COVID-19 cases, which were higher than the 551 infections logged the previous day, data from the provincial health office showed.
In Pangasinan province, Gov. Amado Espino III on Wednesday enforced a province-wide curfew from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. as part of its “escalated measures” against the threat of the Omicron variant.
The curfew was contained in an executive order, which also asked unvaccinated individuals or those with incomplete vaccinations to stay home, except for emergency situations.
Espino prohibited unvaccinated residents, especially children below 12 years old, to visit enclosed establishments, such as malls, supermarkets and restaurants.
Local governments in the province were directed to refrain from holding events that would cause mass gatherings and impose granular lockdown if necessary.
In Cagayan Valley region, authorities on Tuesday began enforcing tighter inspections at border checkpoints as a precautionary measure against COVID-19 after noting a spike in the number of infections in the past days.
As of Monday, the active COVID-19 cases in the region rose to 127, data from the regional office of the Department of Health (DOH) showed.
Most of these cases were traced to Cagayan province, which registered 84 active infections, followed by Isabela with 33, said Dr. Ma. Angelica Taloma, cluster head of the regional DOH Collaborating Centers for Disease Prevention and Control.
Tuguegarao City was tagged as “moderate risk” for COVID-19 transmission due to the surge in infections among its residents. The city has 62 active infections.