The suspension of inbound international flights from South Africa, Namibia, and Zimbabwe supersedes the previous green list classification of the three countries.
Cabinet Secretary and Acting Presidential Spokesperson Karlo Nograles made this clarification on Saturday, Nov. 27 as the Philippines carries out precautionary measures against the new B.1.1.1529 variant of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
"This is to clarify that the Inter-Agency Task Force's (IATF) temporary suspension of inbound international flights from South Africa, Namibia, and Zimbabwe contained in IATF Resolution 150, supersedes the earlier green list classification of the three abovementioned countries in IATF Resolution 148-A," Nograles said in statement.
According to the IATF's definition, green list countries are nations and jurisdictions classified as low risk based on COVID-19 incidence rate and case count.
"Likewise, the temporary suspension of inbound international flights from Namibia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Eswatini, and Mozambique shall take effect immediately and until 15 December 2021," Nograles added.
The government's pandemic task force has yet to fully update its list of green, yellow, and red countries, which are risk classifications in connection with COVID-19. The latest lists covering the Nov. 15 to 30 period can be found here.
On Friday night, Nograles announced the temporarily suspension of international inbound flights from South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Eswatini, and Mozambique due to local cases or the likelihood of occurrences of the new B.1.1.1529 variant.
Initially dubbed as the South Africa variant, it has been described as a heavily mutated variant of COVID-19.
The Philippines has just arguably beaten the Delta variant, which first grabbed local headlines last August. From around 20,000 new daily cases within the period of August to September, the Philippines is now routinely posing fewer than 1,000 new cases of the disease per day.
Nograles also serves as IATF spokesperson.