Local government units (LGUs) will decide whether or not they will require persons entering their jurisdiction to test negative for COVID-19, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said Thursday night.
Duque said this was the decision of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) after some LGUs expressed concern over the national government’s plan to allow fully vaccinated persons to simply present their vaccination cards instead of undergoing testing.
“The final agreement there is to give the LGUs the option… to require RT-PCR testing. That’s the clarification that has been made,” Duque said. “They (LGUs) will make their own risk assessment.”
In the meantime, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is working on “digital vaccine certification” for LGUs that will require only vaccination cards.
Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said the DICT is already encoding information of those fully vaccinated into a system as a way of dealing with fake vaccination cards.
Interior Assistant Secretary Odilon Pasaraba added that the government is also looking into having a unified vaccination card to be used by all LGUs.
Earlier, the Palace said the policy of not requiring RT-PCR testing for fully-vaccinated people was meant to be an incentive for people to get their jabs.
It was also based on the fact that vaccinated people were unlikely to get sick with COVID-19.
The Philippines has fully vaccinated 4.5 percent or more than 3.2 million of the 70 million target population for COVID-19 jabs, the Department of Health (DOH) said Friday.
Health Undersecretary Myrna Cabotaje, during a briefing, said 12,703,081 doses have been administered nationwide as of July 8, with an average of around 200,000 shots administered daily.
A total of 9,493,839 individuals received at least one dose, accounting for 13.4 percent of the government’s 70 million target.
Of this number, 3,209,242 have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 after receiving both doses.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire backed an OCTA Research earlier projection that Metro Manila may become resilient against the more transmissible Delta coronavirus variant in a few months.
“If we achieve 30 percent [coverage], actually it’s not just the Delta variant. We will become resilient to the COVID-19 disease and against all of these variants if people will be vaccinated and if we can reach this 30 percent to 50 percent,” Vergeire said in a mix of English and Filipino.
Cabotaje said the government now aims to vaccinate at least 90 percent of the A1 priority group by the end of June, more than 90 percent of senior citizens by the end of July, and at least 90 percent of persons with comorbidities by the end of August.
She also said the government seeks to report daily COVID-19 vaccine coverage and inventory as well as cold chain and logistics management.
The Philippines logged 5,881 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, bringing the total number of infections to 1,461,455.
Seventy new fatalities brought the COVID-19 death toll to 25,720.
The DOH also reported 3,003 newly-recovered patients, bringing the total recoveries to 1,383,833.
There were 51,902 active cases, of which 90.3 percent were mild, 4.4 percent were asymptomatic, 1.5 percent were critical, 2.2 percent were severe, and 1.56 percent were moderate.
Nationwide, 57 percent of ICU beds, 45 percent of isolation beds, 42 percent of ward beds, and 35 percent of ventilators, were in use.
In Metro Manila, 41 percent of ICU beds, 37 percent of isolation beds, 33 percent of ward beds, and 31 percent of ventilators, were in use.
Also on Friday, the OCTA Research group flagged the cities of Davao, Iloilo, General Santos, Cagayan de Oro, Baguio, and Tagum as areas of concern due to a rise in their COVID-19 numbers.
While cases declined in Davao City, it still had the highest average number of daily new cases with around 241 infections recorded per day from July 2 to 8, the OCTA group said.
Davao’s reproduction number also stood at 1, indicating a sustained COVID-19 transmission, while its average daily attack rate was high at 13.26 cases per 100,000 population and its positivity rate was at 15 percent, above the World Health Organization’s threshold of 5 percent.
ICU use was also very high in Davao City, with 95 percent, and in Iloilo City, at 94 percent.
OCTA also noted that Metro Manila averaged 636 new infections daily from July 2 to 8, 7 percent lower than the week before.
