Travel bans on 10 countries extended until Sep 5

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Image by Paul Brennan from Pixabay
  • The Philippines has extended anew travel restrictions on incoming passengers from 10 countries from Sept 1 to 5
  • Banned are travellers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia
  • The extension in restrictions aims to slow down the rising number of COVID-19 cases and stop the further spread of variants, particularly the highly infectious Delta variant, in the country

The Philippines has extended anew the travel restrictions on incoming passengers from 10 countries from September 1 to 5 to slow down the rising number of COVID-19 cases.

The travel ban covers India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

The Philippines last April started to implement a travel ban on incoming passengers from India due to the surge in COVID-19 cases in that country. In May, the travel ban was expanded to cover Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, UAE, and Oman. On July 16, a travel ban was imposed on India, and on July 25 it was expanded to cover Malaysia and Thailand. The ban on the 10 countries has been extended a few times since.

The Department of Health earlier emphasized the need to continuously enforce strict border control measures and intensify local COVID-19 responses against the local transmission of the highly infectious Delta variant in the Philippines.

As of August 31, the Philippines has recorded 1.99 million COVID-19 cases. On the same day, the World Health Organization Philippines said the highly contagious Delta variant has become the dominant COVID-19 variant in the country.

Currently, countries, jurisdictions and territories on the country’s “Green List,” or countries considered as low risk for COVID-19 based on their disease incidence rate, include Albania, American Samoa, Anguilla, Australia, Benin, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cayman Islands, Chad, China, Comoros, Cote d’ Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Falkland Islands, Gabon, Grenada, Hong Kong, Hungary, Mali, Federated States of Micronesia, Montserrat, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niger, Nigeria, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Poland, Romania, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Slovakia, Sudan and Taiwan.