Philippines extends travel ban on 10 countries over Delta variant

By Devina Halim

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AA) – The Philippines on Friday further extended the ban on travelers from India and nine other countries until Aug. 31 to curb the spread of Delta variant, the highly contagious strain of the coronavirus.

The travel ban, first issued on India on April 29, was later expanded to include Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates.

On July 16, the country added Indonesia to the list, followed by Malaysia and Thailand on July 25. The travel ban was set to expire on Sunday, but the government extended it until Aug. 31.

President Rodrigo Duterte approved the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force to extend the travel restrictions from Aug. 16 to Aug. 31, Harry Roque, the presidential spokesman said in a statement.

- New record

The Philippines reported 13,177 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, the second-highest daily infections since the pandemic hit the country, and 299 more fatalities.

Earlier on April 2, the country had recorded the highest number of new cases with 15,310 infections in 24 hours.

More than 1.71 million COVID-19 cases and 29,838 related deaths have been recorded so far in the Southeast Asian country.

Meanwhile, 4,322 more patients have recovered in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of recovered patients to 1,587,069, while the active infections stand at 96,395 or 5.6% of the caseload.

*Writing by Rhany Chairunissa Rufinaldo with Anadolu Agency’s Indonesian language services in Jakarta