Philippines relaxes quarantine rules for fully vaccinated travelers.

The Philippine government’s coronavirus task force has announced new quarantine rules for fully vaccinated individuals entering the Philippines from select countries abroad. 

In a press briefing on Tuesday, June 29, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said that inbound travelers who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in the Philippines or other countries will now be required to undergo seven days of facility-based quarantine upon arrival, with testing to be done on the fifth day. 

The new rules, effective July 1, will cover individuals who were fully vaccinated in the Philippines regardless of their travel history, and people fully vaccinated abroad who “stayed exclusively” in “green countries” in the past 14 days before arrival.

Roque described “green countries” as those classified by the Philippine health department as low-risk for COVID-19 based on disease incidence rate.

It is not yet clear if the list of “green countries” is available. Rappler has asked the Department of Health (DOH) for more details on the matter. We will update this story once the DOH responds. 

Before this, shortened quarantine protocols announced on June 4 were supposed to cover only people fully vaccinated in the Philippines. But this had not been implemented because the government was still figuring out how to verify an individual’s vaccination status.

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