DOH: Stricter border control better than expanding travel ban over Delta variant

The Department of Health (DOH) on Tuesday vouched for stricter border control instead of expanding the travel ban over the more transmissible Delta coronavirus variant first discovered in India.

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said this was because the Delta variant has already been detected in 92 countries.

“According to our experts and even discussing with other officials, we cannot ban all of the countries affected now by the Delta variant,” she said in an interview on CNN Philippines.

“We cannot isolate the Philippines from all of these countries.”

Vergeire said the recommendation is not to add additional countries to be banned but “strengthen more our border controls.”

The Philippines has extended until July 15 its temporary ban on travelers from the United Arab Emirates, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh due to the threat of the Delta variant. 

Dr. Tony Leachon, a health reform advocate and former government advisor, earlier urged authorities to also impose a travel ban on Indonesia.  The Southeast Asian nation is seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases and has also reported the detection of the Delta variant. 

“It was part of the recommendation and also coming from our experts [that] it’s very irrational that we will be restricting all of these countries for this [variant],” Vergeire said.

The Philippines has so far detected 17 Delta variant cases, all of whom are returning overseas Filipinos. 

An expert earlier explained that the Delta variant is more transmissible, manifests different symptoms than the original coronavirus, and increases the likelihood of hospitalization. 

The Philippines has tallied more than 1.4 million COVID-19 cases with over 1.3 million recoveries and 24,456 deaths as of Monday afternoon. —KBK, GMA News