Flights that carry only fully-vaccinated passengers are being proposed as a solution to easing quarantine restrictions for travelers entering the Philippines.
These are dubbed as "green flights" by non-profit advocacy group Go Negosyo which proposed the policy.
The appeal came after the group called on the government to allow Filipino immigrants, their families, and overseas Filipino workers (PFWs) to come home this holiday season.
“This could relax the quarantine restrictions further to as low as 24 hours or overnight,” said Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship and Go Negosyo founder Jose 'Joey' Concepcion III.
He said the proposed “green flights” can greatly ease the hesitation among returning Filipinos and international travelers, many of whom would have already spent hours on the plane and currently face five days of facility quarantine even if they are fully vaccinated, and seven days facility quarantine if unvaccinated.
Concepcion had earlier proposed testing inbound international passengers 48 hours before departure and testing again once they arrive in the country.
He also bared that a US-based company has offered to pilot-test a PCR testing technology which can conduct pool testing among 25 passengers and have their results available upon their arrival in the Philippines.
Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Romualdez shared that 90 percent of US-based Filipinos have already been vaccinated and that "many are eager to fly to the Philippines but remain concerned about the quarantine protocols imposed on non-Green listed countries like the US and Canada."
Comparing data between the National Capital Region (NCR), Metro Los Angeles and Metro New York, OCTA Research’s Fr. Nick Austriaco during a press conference noted that the NCR has comparable vaccination and positivity rates with the two major US cities, and even a lower number of new cases reported.
Despite this, the Philippines still requires the fully-vaccinated inbound travelers to stay at a facility quarantine, while the US requires only a pre-flight COVID test within 72 hours of departure.
The group also backed their recommendation through data from Philippine Airlines (PAL) which shows that the positivity rate among inbound passengers from the US has been relatively low at 0.3 percent, which means that of their average 200 passengers per flight, there would be only 0.6 infected passengers. Even for a full 777 flight carrying 377 passengers, that would translate to 1.13 infected passengers per flight.
PAL also reports that they find only 10 percent of passengers from North America are unvaccinated.
Vaccination rate in Metro Manila has reached over 85 percent of its target population while cases are now down to an average of 405 per day, with the reproduction number dipping to 0.37 and the average daily attack rate to 2.86 per 100,000 people, OCTA Research said.
“We are confident that these are clear trends,” said OCTA Research’s Dr. Guido David, referring to key indicators on COVID-19 which show that there is reason to be optimistic, while cautioning that Filipinos must be vigilant and still adhere to minimum public health standards.
“We have to begin to live as if we believe that vaccines work. Things are different now from six months ago,” Austriaco aslo said as he noted that new infections in the country cannot be attributed to international arriving passengers.
Homegrown transmissions account for almost all of the new COVID-19 cases in the country today, he said.