BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL BAÑAGA
BACOLOD City – The newly-issued executive order of Negros Occidental’s Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson remains despite the clarification of the Department of Health (DOH) that Resolution No. 101 of the National Inter-Agency Task Force (NIATF) is still in effect.
Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz said they would only lift the executive order if there’s a directive from the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the NIATF to do so.
As of yesterday, following the issuance of Lacson’s executive order, about 50 full vaccinated individuals applied entry to the province via the Safe, Swift, and Smart Passage (S-PaSS) travel and mobility management system, and they were given clearance to enter the province using their vaccination cards.
“We are stepping up measures to curb the proliferation of those using fraudulent documents and fake vaccination cards,” Diaz said.
On Monday, Diaz said they will start launching the quick response (QR) code for fully vaccinated Negrenses for verification.
Early on Wednesday, the DOH stressed that local government units (LGUs) may still require all travelers their negative result of reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test as entry requirement.
The NIATF, on the other hand, said fully vaccinated individuals need not present RT-PCR test results if they travel within the country, only their vaccination card for interzonal travel as well as for intrazonal movement.
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
