The government’s pandemic task force has allowed local government units (LGUs) to still have an option of requiring fully vaccinated people to undergo Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) coronavirus disease (COVID-19) testing before they are allowed to enter their respective jurisdictions, the Department of Health (DOH) said.
"The final agreement there is to give the LGUs the option, the leeway, to require RT-PCR testing. That has been the clarification that has been made,” said DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III.
Duque said that such an option was given to LGUs because “they will make their own risk assessment.”
"They can require depending on the option they wish to exercise kung gusto nilang vaccination card. Ang naging isyu sa vaccination card, yung authentication and validation (They can require depending on the option they wish to exercise if they want a vaccination card. The issue with the vaccination card is the authentication and validation),” he said.
“ DICT (Department of Information and Communications Technology) is working on the digital vaccine certification and by July 31st, their commitment is to be able to upload 90 percent of the total vaccinated individuals,” he added.
The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) earlier issued a resolution, easing the travel requirements for fully vaccinated people within the country. However, some LGUs expressed their hesitation of allowing vaccination cards as sufficient alternatives to testing requirements.
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