Returning Filipinos from abroad who have received two coronavirus vaccine shots will have a shorter quarantine period, Malacanang said Friday.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the government’s COVID 19 task force has shortened the quarantine period to seven day facility based period instead of 14 days for individuals considered fully vaccinated two or more weeks after receiving their second dose, or two or more weeks after receiving a single-shot COVID-19 vaccine.
The new rule was contained in the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases’ (IATF-EID) latest guidelines on inbound international travel to any port of the Philippines of all fully vaccinated individuals, Roque said in a press statement.
This developed as the Department of Health (DOH) said it is studying the possibility of opening “green lanes” in ports and airports in the country where fully vaccinated travelers may pass, when the country reaches certain inoculation targets.
DOH experts also recommended at least 30 percent of the population must be inoculated against COVID-19 before restrictions are relaxed for fully vaccinated individuals.
“An individual shall be considered as having been fully vaccinated two or more weeks after receiving the second dose in a 2-dose series, or two or more weeks after receiving a single-dose vaccine,” Roque in a statement.
Fully vaccinated individuals must also carry their vaccination cards to be verified by the Bureau of Quarantine and the Department of Transportation (DOTr).
Instead of spending 10 days in an isolation facility and another four-day home quarantine, the fully vaccinated individuals who wish to return to the country will just undergo a seven-day facility-based quarantine upon arrival.
An RT-PCR or swab test will only be conducted when the individual manifests COVID-19 symptoms within the seven-day quarantine.
However, Roque said for foreign nationals, they will still be required to quarantine for 10 days and another four days in their respective homes.
He said reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing will only be done, in case the fully vaccinated individual manifests Covid-19 symptoms within the seven-day quarantine.