Tourists allowed in...posted 27 Nov. 2021

[Jollygoodfellow]

9 hours ago, GeoffH said:

Then if the country you were vaccinated in does not have a reciprical arrangement with the Philippines for VaxCertPH, and you can't get a WHO International Certificates of Vaccination and Prophylaxis (which I have but was unable to get endorsed by the Covid vaccination provider) then you're treated as unvaccinated upon arrival and have to quarantine. 

I think you are covered here by endorsed by "WHO". Link for certificate , servicesaustralia.gov.au/covidvaccineproof

Australia launches the international ‘gold standard’ of proof of vaccination

19 October 2021
Category News, speeches and media
As international borders reopen for travel, many countries around the world will ask travellers to show proof of their COVID-19 vaccinations before they enter.

The Australian Government’s new International COVID-19 Vaccination Certificate provides secure and internationally recognised proof of their COVID-19 vaccination history. The international certificate features a Quick Response (QR) code, which is generated using the COVID-19 vaccination information in the Australian Immunisation Register and your passport details.

Also known as a Visible Digital Seal, the individual QR code is as secure as an Australian passport chip. It can be read by border control authorities and at check-in with airlines when departing or returning to Australia.

This QR code represents the ‘gold standard’ of proof of vaccination – conforming to the global standard set by the International Civil Aviation Organization and endorsed by the World Health Organization. As one of the first countries to meet this standard, Australia will share the Visible Digital Seal technology, building a curated library of technical documents to assist interested countries to develop their own vaccination certificates.

The easiest way to get your free international certificate is by using your Medicare account in myGov, or the Medicare Express app. If you can’t use these options, you can contact the Australian Immunisation Register on 1800 653 809.

For more information on:

getting an international certificate, visit servicesaustralia.gov.au/covidvaccineproof
the security of the international certificate go to passports.gov.au
renewing your passport, see passports.gov.au.

https://www.dfat.gov.au/news/news/australia-launches-international-gold-standard-proof-vaccination

 

 

[GeoffH]

2 minutes ago, Jollygoodfellow said:

I think you are covered here by endorsed by "WHO". Link for certificate , servicesaustralia.gov.au/covidvaccineproof

Australia launches the international ‘gold standard’ of proof of vaccination

 

I have one of those electronic (but printable) certificates... I was assuming because the Australian government doesn't (or doesn't appear to) recognize the Philippines vaccination certificate that it would be regarded as not being reciprical.

I think I need to get in touch with the Philippine embassy in Australia for clarification...

[Jollygoodfellow]

12 minutes ago, GeoffH said:

 

I have one of those electronic (but printable) certificates... I was assuming because the Australian government doesn't (or doesn't appear to) recognize the Philippines vaccination certificate that it would be regarded as not being reciprical.

I think I need to get in touch with the Philippine embassy in Australia for clarification...

But its an international certificate which is endorsed by the WHO so should be fine. Yes best to check. 

Vaccinated Travellers
Australian citizens, permanent residents and their immediate family members who are fully vaccinated will need to show their vaccination status at airport check-in on departure.

You will need to show airline staff your International COVID-19 Vaccination Certificate. You will be able to apply for this in your MyGov account once your vaccination is registered on the Australian Immunisation Register.

International COVID-19 Vaccination Certificates are being used around the world to provide evidence that travellers have been vaccinated.

The certificate will be accessible in a PDF format and can be printed or you can hold it electronically on your phone.

Once available, applying for your International COVID-19 Vaccination Certificate will only take a few minutes. If you cannot access the internet, you can call Medicare on +61 1800 653 809 to apply, and they will send the certificate to you – this may take up to 14 days.

The International COVID-19 Vaccination Certificate relies on ePassport technology and will work in a similar way to passport chips in the form of a QR code. The airline will check your vaccination status at check-in for departure.

[graham59]

Oops.... forget everything from yesterday. From BI Facebook page today:   

Pretty sure this list of 'baddy' countries will soon be expanded, to include some that people have actually heard of. 

.

 

Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles

Acting Spokesperson

26 November 2021

On heightened border control measures to prevent the entry of the B.1.1. 529 variant

The Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) approved on Friday, November 26, 2021, the temporary suspension of inbound international flights from South Africa, Botswana, and other countries with local cases or with the likelihood of occurrences of the B.1.1.1529 variant. This shall take effective immediately and until 15 December 2021.

The Bureau of Quarantine, in close coordination with our local government units, has been directed to locate travelers from the abovementioned countries who may have arrived in the recent 7 days prior to the temporary suspension of inbound travel. These travelers shall be required to undergo full 14-day facility-based quarantine with RT-PCR test on the 7th day or upon location of the passenger, whichever is later, with the date of arrival as Day 1.

The IATF likewise approved the temporary suspension of inbound international flights from Namibia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Eswatini, and Mozambique, which are adjacent to South Africa and Botswana. Passengers coming from or having been to these abovementioned countries within the last 14 days prior to arrival shall be temporarily barred from entering the country.

Passengers already in transit from the abovementioned countries and all those who have been to the same within 14 days immediately preceding arrival to the Philippines, who arrive before 12:01AM of November 28, 2021, shall not be barred from entry, but shall be required to undergo stricter quarantine and testing protocols such as the observation of an absolute facility-based 14-day quarantine period, notwithstanding a negative RT-PCR result.

Meanwhile, all passengers, whether Filipinos or foreigners, merely transiting through the abovementioned countries shall not be deemed as having come from or having been to the said country if they stayed in the airport the entire time and were not cleared for entry into such country by its immigration authorities.

Finally, upon arrival in the Philippines, passengers covered by the immediately preceding paragraph shall comply with existing testing and quarantine protocols. ###

Edited November 27, 2021 by graham59

[graham59]

.... And now.... 

-

'Covid: Dozens test positive on SA-Netherlands flights'

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59442149

[Mike J]

12 hours ago, graham59 said:

.... And now.... 

-

'Covid: Dozens test positive on SA-Netherlands flights'

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59442149

That is ten percent of the people tested.  That is scary.  

<snip>

Sixty-one people who arrived in Amsterdam on two flights from South Africa have tested positive for Covid-19, Dutch officials say.

They have been placed in isolation at a hotel near Schiphol airport.

They were among some 600 passengers held for several hours after arrival while they were tested for the virus.

<end snip>

[graham59]

Yeah. Very bad news .

I can also see the Phils authorities taking tourist 'restrictions' back to square one on this .

I was hoping my son in the UK could come to visit with us, and meet his brother for the first time.   

[Snowy79]

Reading today of some South Africans celebrating getting into the Netherlands today, almost 24hrs after they found passengers with the African variant.  They said they just mingled with others and passed through the airport. 

[Mike J]

38 minutes ago, Snowy79 said:

Reading today of some South Africans celebrating getting into the Netherlands today, almost 24hrs after they found passengers with the African variant.  They said they just mingled with others and passed through the airport. 

Maybe this the article you read?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/as-potential-omicron-variant-cases-emerge-an-international-scramble-to-shut-it-out/ar-AARcq6h?ocid=Peregrine

As more countries placed travel bans on southern Africa early Saturday for fear of a new and possibly more dangerous variant of the coronavirus, the passengers on two flights from South Africa found themselves caught in a pandemic nightmare.

After about 30 hours squeezed together in the planes, crammed buses and then in waiting rooms, 61 of the more than 500 passengers on those flights had tested positive and been quarantined. They were being checked for Omicron, named by the World Health Organization just on Friday as a “variant of concern,” its most serious category.

Everyone else, according to Stephanie Nolen, The New York Times’s global health reporter, who was on one of the planes, “has scattered to the world.”

The chaos in Amsterdam seemed emblematic of the varied, and often scattershot, responses to the virus across the world, with masking rules, national testing requirements and vaccine mandates differing from country to country and continent to continent. (KLM, the airline operating the flights, said that only some passengers had to show proof of a recent negative test, depending on vaccination status and the requirements of their final destination.)

Such gaps could open avenues for contagion, especially for a potentially threatening new variant.

“That number of people seems like a very high number to have this happen,” said Andrew Pekosz, an epidemiologist from Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Unless there’s really tremendous amounts of spread of this virus locally that was not detected.”

The Omicron variant is likely to be found in some of those 61 passengers who tested positive, Dutch public health officials announced on Saturday. The sequencing is still being performed by the Dutch agency for disease control and prevention. It was unclear how many passengers may have tested positive for the variant.

Those who tested positive for the coronavirus at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on Friday have been transferred to quarantine hotels. Those who tested negative could continue their journey or, if the Netherlands was their final destination, were told to quarantine at home.

The government is also telling thousands of people who have returned from southern Africa in the last few days to get tested, even if they don’t have symptoms.

There is still relatively little known about Omicron. It has mutations that scientists fear could make it more infectious and less susceptible to vaccines — though neither of these effects is yet to be established.

The numbers of confirmed cases outside southern Africa remain small, but there are worries the virus could have spread more widely before scientists there discovered it.

“It would be irresponsible” not to be worried about the new variant, Roberto Speranza, the health minister of Italy, the first European Union nation to block flights from southern Africa, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper on Saturday. “It’s a new and worrying element.”

On Friday evening, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, said on Twitter that she held “fruitful” conversations with the pharmaceutical companies and that they “explained their efforts to quickly and thoroughly understand the Omicron variant and adjust our strategies accordingly. Time is of the essence.”

The union acted with rare unity in response to the threat posed by the new variant, binding together to restrict travel to and from southern Africa.

Vivian Loonela, a spokeswoman for the commission, said Saturday that “member states agreed to introduce rapidly restrictions on all travel into the E.U. from seven countries in the southern Africa region — Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe.”

Mr. Speranza, Italy’s health minister, told Corriere della Sera that he considered it wise “to activate the emergency brake,” adding, the “European coordination on these decisions is fundamental.”

One of Mr. Speranza’s main criticisms during the first wave of the virus back in 2020 was that Italy was left alone, and that France and Britain and other countries did not act to ban flights from China as Italy did in January of that year.

He said the strategy of the government, to promote vaccinations through a strict health pass that was required to work and participate in much of society, would not change. The government’s message remained the same, vaccines — and now boosters — were the only way out of the pandemic.

[Old55]

Philippines is at 25% vaccination rate now?