FILE PHOTO: Passengers, mostly Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) queue at the departure area of Ninoy Aquino International Airport amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Pasay, Metro Manila, Philippines, June 1, 2021. REUTERS/Eloisa Lopez
MANILA, Philippines — The country’s COVID-19 task force has further reduced the number of “green” countries from where fully vaccinated travelers qualify for a shorter quarantine period upon arrival in the Philippines.
Seventeen jurisdictions were removed and two were added in the “green” countries list as shown in an updated list by the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases and presidential spokesperson Harry Roque on Friday.
There are now 36 countries in the updated list from the previous 51.
The following areas were removed from the updated list of “green” countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Azerbaijan, Bermuda, Bulgaria, Dominica, Gambia, Ghana, Kosovo, Laos, Marshall Islands, Moldova, North Macedonia, Saba, Saint Barthelemy, Singapore, Sint Eustatius, and Togo.
Cameroon and Sudan were the jurisdictions added to the “green” countries list.
Below is the full updated list of “green” countries:
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
Taiwan
Under IATF guidelines, fully vaccinated travelers coming from these countries entering the country are qualified to undergo a seven-day facility-based quarantine, instead of 10 days.
Travelers qualified for the shortened quarantine period should have stayed the past 14 days exclusively in the aforementioned countries prior to arrival in the country.
They are considered fully vaccinated against COVID-19 two or more weeks after receiving a single-dose jab or the second shot of a two-dose vaccine.