Legaspi City – In a news release the IATF-Covid 19 Bicol said that Bicol border town from Quezon province will not allow transit of land transport vehicles boarded by non-essential travellers, this was confirmed by the region IATF Chairman Atty. Anthony Nuyda of DILG Bicol in order to stop the crossing of vans, private vehicles ferrying non-essential travellers to have an easy route from Quezon to Bicol oftentimes without the mandatory health documents required.
Travellers from the National Capital Region and the provinces under the ECQ bubble including areas as Covid hotspots will find a hard time crossing the border as it will be manned by composite teams of PNP, army and health frontliners are ordered to denied passage for those not allowed under the new regulations.
Nuyda said that a validated report of 12 colorum vehicles with 79 passengers held at the Quezon-Bicol boundary in Del Gallego town nine of the passengers were tested positive for Covid others presented authentic results and others have questionable COVID-19 results.
It is surprising according to him that the vehicles were allowed transit by NCR authorities which is under ECQ adding the risk of the spread of the virus in the region.
This comes after DOH reported a daily spike of Covid cases after the delayed response in the acquisition of the vaccine and its roll-out to the populace. Adding to the problem is the failure of the government to identify target locale as herd immunity. Lately, IATF Galvez is tinkering for a massive rollout in NCR and other high risk areas to achieve herd immunity when it is expected that 2milion doses of the vaccine will arrive this month.
It is expected that he will meet with the region’s governors to come-up with the guidelines consonant with the IATF-EID issuances.
It is expected that IATF-Bicol together with LTO, LTFRB, seaports and airports will impose the strict protocol to all inbound passengers in the region after DOH Bicol recorded a high of 62 cases on Black Saturday and on April 5 638 active cases was recorded in the six provinces of Bicol. IATF-Bicol is yet to release a memorandum that covers non-essential travellers as of this posting. (BicolExpress.News / 4.6.21)