By Samuel P. Medenilla & Butch Fernandez
AS health authorities announced the death of the second case of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in the country on Sunday, President Duterte ordered a ban on the entry of non-Filipino travelers coming from all of China, which is currently beset by an outbreak of the dreaded, new disease.
Last week, the ban only covered the province of Hubei in China, where the 2019-nCoV is said to have originated.
Although there have been calls for the Philippines to impose a lockdown for nearly a week, Duterte’s decision on Sunday—announced twice, first by trusted confidante Sen. Christopher Go and later by Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea—caught a lot of people by surprise as Malacañang had kept saying it’s unwise to impose a total travel ban.
An undetermined number of passengers were shocked as their flights arrived from China, Hong Kong and Macau. The foreign passengers were sent back later in the day while the Filipino citizens and resident visa holders were let in, under a 14-day mandatory quarantine.
Medialdea said the temporary ban will cover all nationalities coming from China and its Special Administrative Regions, namely, Hong Kong and Macau, except Filipino citizens and holders of Philippine government-issued Permanent Resident Visa.
“For clarity the ban is on the person of any nationality except that of Filipinos particularly specified above, coming directly from the places abovementioned and arriving in the Philippines, and not of any flight,” Medialdea said.
Earlier on Sunday, before Medialdea’s announcement, Go announced in a radio interview that Duterte on Saturday night decided to adopt a temporary, but total, travel ban on all passengers from China, Hong Kong and Macau.
The expanded travel ban was affirmed by the interagency task force on the management of communicable diseases, Go said Sunday.
Sen. Risa Hontiveros, a staunch government critic, welcomed the expanded ban which came three days after she and Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto, and Sens. Joel Villanueva and Francis Pangilinan aired a similar appeal.
Hearing
Meanwhile, Go confirmed that the Senate Committee on Health, which he chairs, will hold a hearing Tuesday (February 4) on the government’s program for containing the virus.
Senators backed an immediate total ban even as they pressed the Department of Health over the weekend to step up efforts to track down suspected carriers of the deadly 2019-nCoV to avoid spreading it.
Senate Majority Leader Miguel Zubiri, citing the World Health Organization’s declaration of the novel coronavirus outbreak as “a global health emergency,” noted that other countries, like the United States, “also tightened quarantine measures.” Sen.Francis Pangilinan also backed the “total ban” but added, “How we wish it came much earlier as hundreds of possible carriers have been able to enter the country in the last several days; but better late than never.”
Zubiri suggested that “as a goodwill gesture, we can offer to extend the visa of Chinese visitors who were already here before the crisis and who don’t want to go home to avoid catching the disease.”
He recalled that the virus first broke out in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, but has since spread to every region in mainland China, including Tibet. China has reported 11,000 confirmed cases, with 259 deaths. Except for the Chinese man from Wuhan who died in a Philippine hospital on Sunday, all fatalities so far have been in China, but the virus has reached at least 25 other countries.
Two-way restriction
The new Palace order on Sunday also temporarily stopped Filipinos from traveling to China, Hong Kong and Macau.
Medialdea said the measures will remain in effect “until the danger of the dreaded disease has ceased.”
Duterte is set to meet on Monday with the Inter-agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases to discuss other measures to cope with the 2019-nCoV cases.
Medialdea said the Task Force was authorized to ban the entry of travelers from other areas with confirmed widespread 2019-nCoV.
Local protocol
Medialdea also instructed all departments, agencies, offices and instrumentalities of the government, government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCC), government financial institutions (GFI), state universities and colleges (SUC) and local government units (LGU) to develop their own guidelines on the 2019-nCoV.
He said the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) will help these agencies carry out the measures.
To limit the spread of the virus, Medialdea reminded the public to strictly practice the anti-2019-nCoV guidelines of the Department of Health (DOH), which includes regular handwashing, as well as wearing surgical masks in crowded areas, or when one has coughs and colds or has a fever.
Immigration
The Bureau of Immigration (BI) said on Sunday it would not waste any time enforcing the two-way travel ban imposed by Duterte on foreigners from mainland China, Macau and Hong Kong, and Filipinos going to these areas.
BI spokesman Dana Sandoval said they have been directed to implement a two-way travel ban as part of measures to prevent the spread of the virus.
Duterte ordered the temporary travel ban following the DOH’s confirmation of a second case of virus infection that led to the death of a 44-year-old Chinese patient.
The victim was the first death recorded outside China.
“We have received the directive and we are ready to implement the expanded temporary travel ban as instructed by the President,” Sandoval said.
The BI initially only planned on preventing travel to Hubei province, where the capital is Wuhan, ground zero for nCoV.
The bureau widened the scope of the ban after Duterte extended the travel ban to all of China.
Sandoval said the travel ban would take effect immediately.
Last January 28, the BI suspended the issuance of the visa-upon-arrival (VUA) for Chinese nationals, to slow down the arrival of Chinese tour groups.
Meanwhile, the BI said a special team of immigration officers with medical background has also been assembled to conduct immigration formalities, should Filipinos from Hubei province be repatriated. These officers have medical background and underwent safety briefings under the Bureau of Quarantine.
With Joel R. San Juan
Image credits: Nonie Reyes