BACOLOD City – Residents who wish to return to this city after travelling to Manila or other areas in the country will no longer be required to present their negative swab test results upon entry. Condition: They must have completed their two doses of the vaccine against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) only in this city.
According to City Administrator Em Ang, executive director of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) here, only Bacolodnons who have secured vaccination cards from this city are exempted from the required reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test result.
The EOC could also easily verify the vaccination cards, Ang said.
If a resident is not a Bacolod vaccination card holder or has obtained his/hers from other areas, he/she must still present a negative RT-PCR test result upon entry in accordance with the National Inter-Agency Task Force (NIATF) guidelines.
Meanwhile, personnel of the Department of Information and Communications Technology and the Vaccination Information Management System in this city have yet to complete the encoding of the all vaccinees in this city.
Earlier, the NIATF announced that said fully vaccinated individuals need not present RT-PCR test results if they travel within the country, only their vaccination cards for inter and intrazonal travel.
An individual shall be considered fully vaccinated 15 days after getting the second dose of a two-dose vaccine or 15 days after getting a single-dose vaccine.
The vaccine administered to the individual has to be in the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) or Compassionate Special Permit (CSP) list of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or in the Emergency Use Listing of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Travelers, however, still have to undergo health and exposure screening upon arrival at the local government unit of destination./PN
