While other countries plan to kickstart their tourism with precautions, Philippines chooses to enforce a more stringent regulation on its flight arrivals. For fear of an upsurge and a consequent spike in coronavirus cases, the archipelagic country in Southeast Asia has decided to keep its borders closed.

As per the new guidelines by the Philippines&rsquo Office of the Executive Secretary (OES), travellers from countries that detected the new infectious variant of SARS-CoV-2, also known as the UK variant, are temporarily banned from admission in the country.

The Philippines have extended the ban to travellers flying from more than 30 countries compared to the initial 19 countries. The updated list now includes India, United States, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Lebanon, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

The flight ban has been imposed from January 17 and is expected to stay in effect till the end of January. Before the ban, both native Filipinos and foreign travellers were allowed entry to the Philippines (excluding the 19 countries) provided they submitted negative RT-PCR test results and adhered to the strict 14-day quarantine rule.

With the new upgrade, even the native Filipinos would not enjoy easy access to the country if they are travelling from any of the 33 countries mentioned on the list. The exemptions will now be issued by the coronavirus task force in the country on a case-by-case basis.