Philippines plans to drop quarantine

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is more confident about dropping its quarantine to further reopen the economy, which suffered its worst slump last year, as more vaccines are set to arrive, a Cabinet official said.

The nation may shift next quarter to the lowest quarantine level where mass gatherings are allowed, Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said at a virtual briefing yesterday. Mr Duterte “really wants to” ease mobility restrictions as he’s “very happy” with the start of the vaccine rollout, Mr Nograles said.

The Philippines, which has the region’s second-worst coronavirus outbreak, started inoculations this week using 600,000 doses of Sinovac Biotech shots donated by China. It’s set to receive over 487,000 AstraZeneca vaccines from the Covax facility, which supplies shots to poor nations.

The Southeast Asian nation is working to buy 1 million more doses from Sinovac for possible delivery later this month, government officials have said. Mr Duterte earlier said he wants the vaccine stockpile to reach 2 million before he eases virus restrictions.