The Philippines is temporarily banning flights from the United Kingdom from Dec. 24 to 31 due to concerns over the spread of a new variant of SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), emerging in the UK.
President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday night approved the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) recommendation to prevent the entry of the new variant.
The more infectious new COVID-19 variant may worsen the country’s holiday virus surge if it enters the country, an infectious disease expert said Wednesday.
The new strain found in the UK is distinct from the G614 variant that the Philippines last recorded several months ago, said Dr. Rontgene Solante, head of the adult infectious diseases unit at San Lazaro Hospital.
Both have increased transmissibility, he added.
However, health experts across the world say that the border closures may also be too late, the New York Times reported.
It is not known how widely the variant is already circulating, experts say, and the bans threaten to cause more economic and emotional hardship as the toll wrought by the virus continues to grow.
“It is idiotic” was the blunt assessment of Dr. Peter Kremsner, the director of Tübingen University Hospital in Germany.
“If this mutant was only on the island, only then does it make sense to close the borders to England, Scotland and Wales. But if it has spread, then we have to combat the new mutant everywhere,” he told NYT.
He noted that the scientific understanding of the mutation was limited, and its dangers unclear, and described as naïve the notion that the variant was not already spreading widely outside Britain.
Also, Britain has some of the most sophisticated genomic surveillance efforts in the world, which allowed scientists there to discover the variant when it might have gone unnoticed elsewhere, experts said.
Under the IATF resolution, all passengers who have been to the UK within 14 days immediately preceding arrival in the Philippines, including those merely in transit, are also temporarily restricted from entering the country in the same period.
Passengers already in transit from the UK and all those who have been to the UK within 14 days immediately preceding arrival in the Philippines, who arrive before 12:01 a.m. of Dec. 24, will not be subject to entry restriction but will be required to undergo stricter quarantine and testing protocols.
Such protocols include the observation of an absolute 14-day quarantine period at the Athlete’s Village in the New Clark City, notwithstanding a negative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test result.
Outbound travel to the UK will also be subject to the exit protocols of the Philippines and the UK.
On Dec. 22, the Department of Health (DOH) Technical Advisory Group, the Philippine Genome Center, the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, and the World Health Organization (WHO) Country Office convened to discuss the reported new variant of coronavirus and later submitted recommendations to the DOH.
More than 40 countries have shut their borders to the UK due to fears over the new coronavirus strain spreading 70 percent faster than others.
UK researchers discovered the variant after collecting samples from infected people in southeastern England.
Large parts of southeast England, including London, are under a new, stricter level of restrictions to prevent the spread of the virus.
Australia, Denmark, and the Netherlands have identified cases of the variant in their countries.
On Monday, BioNTech Chief Executive Ugur Sahin said he was confident a COVID-19 vaccine co-developed by his company would be effective against a variant of the coronavirus that has emerged in the UK.
According to the WHO, laboratory studies are ongoing to determine whether these variant viruses have different biological properties or alter vaccine efficacy.
It said there is not enough information at present to determine if this variant is associated with any change in the severity of the clinical disease, antibody response, or vaccine efficacy.
“So far, this [variant] increases [the] transmission [rate] by 0.4 percent but there is no evidence yet showing that this can increase severity or virulence nor affect the efficacy of the anti-COVID-19 vaccine,” Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said.
Duque assured the public that authorities are on full alert to prevent the strain from reaching Philippine shores, and that experts are already working to determine the comprehensive profile of the new virus strain.
Duque said initial analysis from the Philippine Genome Center at the University of the Philippines showed that the UK variant has not yet been detected in the Philippines.
Flag carrier Philippine Airlines, meanwhile, said it is suspending its flights to and from London starting Dec. 24, 2020 until the end of February 2021 in compliance with the government’s decision to ban travel from the United Kingdom due to a new strain of the coronavirus.
PAL has been previously serving the Manila – London – Manila route once a week.
PAL spokesperson Cielo Villaluna said affected passengers may rebook on the next available flights with rebooking service fees waived. She added travelers may also refund the cost of their ticket with refunding service fees waived, while the third available option is the conversion of the PAL ticket into a travel voucher for future use.
