Philippines to open borders to fully vaccinated travellers

Move comes as Omicron wave recedes; beefing up community interventions better than curbs

- Raul Dancel

The Philippines is reopening its borders next month, allowing fully vaccinated travellers from at least 150 countries, including Singapore, to enter without having to quarantine at a hotel or a government facility.

This comes as the wave of infections fuelled by the highly contagious Omicron variant of Covid-19 recedes in the country, officials said. “It doesn’t make sense any more (to require quarantine for inbound travellers),” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire told reporters yesterday.

She said Omicron was already so widespread that the infection rate in the Philippines “may even be higher than in countries from where we are restricting travel”.

Dr Vergeire said studies by epidemiologists showed most infections were caused by community transmissions rather than spread by Filipinos returning from overseas and other inbound travellers.