Duque not consulted on scrapping of quarantine for fully vaxxed travelers

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III on Thursday said he was not consulted on the decision to remove the mandatory facility quarantine for fully vaccinated inbound travelers from “green” countries.

READ: List of countries classified as a “green country" or with low risk of infection.

Duque is the chairperson of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF), which made the decision on Wednesday.

In an interview on ANC, Duque said he has always supported the mandatory quarantine at facilities amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“I just want to put on record that I wasn’t part of the IATF that deliberated on this yesterday, because I was in a budget hearing with the Senate,” he said.

Due to this, the Health Secretary said he will raise some concerns with the IATF during their meeting on Thursday afternoon.

“I was told that in some countries, they’re doing this now. But those countries can afford to do it because their national vaccination coverage is more than 70%, whereas we are only at 30%,” Duque said.

The latest data from the National Task Force Against COVID-19 showed that a total of 23 million Filipinos have been fully vaccinated against the COVID-19, 30% of the country’s target population.

“Not all travelers are passing through NCR. Some travelers are going to Davao, to Cebu, to other airports, so that’s a cause of concern, no? So I’m going to raise this later,” Duque said.

He said that since the removal has been approved, government officials must strictly monitor border controls and change the border control policy.

The Philippines has logged a total of 2,690,455 confirmed COVID-19 cases.—AOL, GMA News