Red Cross wants to retain COVID-19 testing amid eased rules for fully vaccinated people

Philippine Red Cross (PRC) on Tuesday cautioned against easing protocols for fully inoculated individuals as it pushed for testing requirements to ensure prevention of COVID-19 transmission.

“Kailangan patuloy pa rin ang ating pagtest upang maihiwalay ang mga healthy individuals sa mga apektado ng COVID-19,” PRC chairman Richard Gordon said in a statement.

(We need to continue testing to separate health individuals from COVID-19-infected persons.)

“To beat this virus, we need to test regularly, isolate, and treat the affected individuals, and vaccinate, so that people can safely return to work, can now go back to school, and the faster we can open our economy,” Gordon added.

He was reacting to the recent Inter-Agency Task Force resolution, allowing interzonal travelers, who completed vaccination, to present legitimate vaccination cards instead of COVID-19 test results.

To date, PRC has conducted 3,382,981 tests to detect SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19.

The League of Provinces of the Philippines (LPP) earlier said testing requirement must not be removed because vaccination does not guarantee that a person is 100% protected from the virus.

So far, Baguio City is the only local government unit that allows travelers to present genuine vaccination cards as an alternative to negative swab test results.

Tourism Chief Bernadette Puyat, however, pointed out that it is still up to local government units if they will decide to impose national government's resolution on scrapping testing in travel requirements.—AOL, GMA News