Task force says HK flights will continue until formal announcement is made
The National Task Force (NTF) against COVID - 19 issued a clarificatory statement on Sunday confirming that the Hong Kong flights will continue until a formal announcement from the Inter-Agency Task Force about the temporary travel ban was issued.
"The NTF wishes to clarify that the inclusion of Hong Kong Flights as part of inbound international flights temporarily suspended due to the emergence of the Omicron variant is not yet final. We await the formal announcement from the IATF following a final recommendation from the Technical Working Group on COVID-19 Variants and other agencies," the task force said in a statement issued around 11 am of Sunday.
"The Government through favorable recommendations of the Department of Health (DOH) will work to ensure timely adoption of preemptive measures to prevent or delay the entry of new variants which have the potential for undermining public health. Until a formal announcement from the IATF is made, HK flights will still be allowed. We apologize for any inconvenience an earlier pronouncement may have caused," he added.
In an earlier radio interview, NTF Spokesman Restituto Padilla confirmed the inclusion of Hongkong in the imposition of a temporary travel ban due to the threat of a new Covid-19 variant called Omicron.
"Since Friday night we have started to ban the entry of flights from areas with the new variant, we are controlling the entry from those other areas with potential infection... So these are the South African countries which are the origin of the new variant and it also includes Hongkong where two cases were recorded earlier," Padilla said.
However, Padilla explained that despite the imposition of temporary travel ban, the Filipinos and their foreign relatives that would come from the affected countries will be allowed to enter the country subject to stricter quarantine protocol that will be required by the Philippines government.
"The foreigners who are related to a Filipino as spouse or fiance or part of their family, they will be allowed to enter as well as the special investors they have exception, generally they need to get a visa where most of the countries they are coming from but the non visa like America where mostly have relatives here they are also allowed under strict quarantine protocols," he said.
For returning overseas Filipinos, we allow their movement, what we do not allow is the flight from the affected countries so if they do not have means of transportation they also cannot return in the country so that is our border protection but Filipino are all allowed to enter under strict quarantine because it is the right of every Filipinos to go home to its country but we are just protecting our borders by implementing stricter quarantine for countries that may be the source or origin of arriving Filipinos," he added.
On the other hand, Padilla noted that because of the stricter quarantine being implemented due to the new COVID-19 variant many Filipinos from Hong Kong have deferred their plan to return to the country for Christmas vacation.
"Essentially we heard that most of our countrymen in Hong Kong have deferred or suspend their plan to return because the 21 days required quarantine in Hong Kong is also a problem for them because most of their employers do not shoulder their expenses during the quarantine period. So most of them decided not to return in the country until the strict quarantine protocols is not yet lifted," he said. Robina Asido/DMS
