Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. has suggested to the government’s COVID-19 task force to impose a travel ban on India amid a rising number of COVID-19 cases and a new virus variant detected in the South Asian nation.
“I have suggested to the IATF (Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases) that a travel ban be imposed on all our good friends in the entire Indian subcontinent; it’s not personal; it’s for everyone’s safety for now; we’ll be able to be together again and we can recall the time when we had to be apart to live,” Locsin said on Twitter Tuesday.
I have suggested to the IATF that a travel ban be imposed on all our good friends in the entire Indian subcontinent; it’s not personal; it’s for everyone’s safety for now; we’ll be able to be together again and we can recall the time when we had to be apart to live.
— Teddy Locsin Jr. (@teddyboylocsin) April 27, 2021
According to Locsin, the IATF had asked him if there would be “foreign policy implications” if a travel ban against the second-most populous country in the world would be enforced.
It is not an original thought. It came from IATF and was told to me for its foreign policy implications. I said there are none for we mean it with only the best intentions for everyone’s safety and with an abiding affection and admiration for India, the pharmacy of the world. https://t.co/mhfTWJdjW5
— Teddy Locsin Jr. (@teddyboylocsin) April 27, 2021
“I said there are none for we mean it with only the best intentions for everyone’s safety and with an abiding affection and admiration for India, the pharmacy of the world,” he said.
The double-mutant variant that was formally labeled B.1.617 has so far reached six countries. It was first detected in October 2020.
The latest variant of the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, is yet to be identified in the Philippines, according to the Department of Health, adding that so far the new coronavirus variants found in the country are those that were first detected in the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Brazil.
READ: India’s COVID-19 surge and the new variant: What we know
On Monday, the Philippines topped one million in the total number of confirmed COVID-19 infections.
Of the total, which includes 914,952 recovered patients and 16,853 fatalities, some 74,623 are tagged as active cases.
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