Vaccinated travelers soon?

[Kby175 115]

Hopefully this actually happens, but how many people will bring fake documents to get into the Philippines?  I might go to the local Philippine embassy to get my visa before traveling if they do open it up.  

 

With the UK opening up to vaccinated travelers it's only a matter of time for the rest to follow. 

 

https://globalnation.inquirer.net/196463/ph-prepares-to-welcome-fully-vaccinated-foreign-travelers

[Joe Kano 327]

Comparing Philippines to UK is like apple to oranges, 1st World country vs 3rd World Country

 

Who would want to go to Philipines for tourism? Not many, you still have the :  Curfews, lockdowns, limited mass transportation, quarantines, liquor bans, hotels/bar closed.

 

Until they can start getting some the people of Philippines vaccinated things are still going to be the same, Duterte has dropped the ball on vaccine.  I think they elect a new President in May 2022, and Duterte can't run again, so maybe when he is gone they will open up.

 

They have 1% of the population vaccinated as of today, Duterte started out strong as President and has become a complete flop with covid and vaccines.

 

COVID-19 VACCINE TRACKER PH - Infogram

[Kby175 115]

Maybe I should have said Thailand instead they are opening up July 1st for vaccinated travelers, but yes I get your point. It's been a long tine since I have seen my family in person so I am getting my hopes up.  

 

I am still planning on going to the Philippines for the months of November and December provided they allow vaccinated tourists. 

[Joe Kano 327]

30 minutes ago, Kby175 said:

Maybe I should have said Thailand instead they are opening up July 1st for vaccinated travelers, but yes I get your point. It's been a long tine since I have seen my family in person so I am getting my hopes up.  

 

I am still planning on going to the Philippines for the months of November and December provided they allow vaccinated tourists. 

I heard Thailand is dependent upon getting a certain amount of people vaccinated in the tourist region

 

I think November/December is possible for travel there.  I will also go there in that time frame as long as I don't have to deal with any quarantine upon arrival non sense.

 

 

[top_secret 2,421]

I saw the announcements that the Philippines is looking at allowing vaccinated tourists and I am certainly watching for any developments with great interest.  But I will reserve getting excited or hopeful there will be any substantive changes until I see actual details.  Because it would not surprise me at all if the Philippine Governments interpretation of "allowing vaccinated tourists" could just mean allowing charter flights from China to fly organized tour groups nonstop to Boracay, or something like that.  The devil is in the details, which remain to be seen.

[Joe Kano 327]

2 hours ago, top_secret said:

I saw the announcements that the Philippines is looking at allowing vaccinated tourists and I am certainly watching for any developments with great interest.  But I will reserve getting excited or hopeful there will be any substantive changes until I see actual details.  Because it would not surprise me at all if the Philippine Governments interpretation of "allowing vaccinated tourists" could just mean allowing charter flights from China to fly organized tour groups nonstop to Boracay, or something like that.  The devil is in the details, which remain to be seen.

I predict nothing will happen

 

Until the vaccines starts getting distributed in the Philippine all things will stay the same.  They don't have any vaccines to administer so I don't see much of anything happening for a long time.

 

Maybe in 6 months or so they will have 30 to 50 % of the people vaccinated and things will change

[Cyberfx1024 7,980]

6 hours ago, Kby175 said:

Hopefully this actually happens, but how many people will bring fake documents to get into the Philippines?  I might go to the local Philippine embassy to get my visa before traveling if they do open it up.  

 

With the UK opening up to vaccinated travelers it's only a matter of time for the rest to follow. 

 

https://globalnation.inquirer.net/196463/ph-prepares-to-welcome-fully-vaccinated-foreign-travelers

They already have had people bring fake documents in regards to PCR tests so it wouldn't surprise me one bit if someone actually uses fake vaccine documents. It is actually talked about on one of their official releases that if you bring fake documents that is subject to deportation

[flicks1998 1,044]

1 hour ago, Joe Kano said:

I predict nothing will happen

 

Until the vaccines starts getting distributed in the Philippine all things will stay the same.  They don't have any vaccines to administer so I don't see much of anything happening for a long time.

 

Maybe in 6 months or so they will have 30 to 50 % of the people vaccinated and things will change

Yes, I would say the same thing.  November-December may be likely if everything falls into place.  There really isnt much of an incentive to open up now anyway.  Its the start of the low season and they should be aiming to have a plan in place for start of the high season.  Also, I dont even see tourists wanting to come to the country until they standardize or loosen local travel restrictions.  The biggest benefit to allowing foreigners in would be for people on this site who would go visit fiances, spouses, children etc.  Most on this site wouldnt care what local restrictions are in place as they just want to see family. 

 

However, tourists are not going to come if they need to wear face masks/shields on the beach, need local travel passes, health passes from barangays, etc.  Most tourists have no clue what a barangay is.  If you look at recently published travel restrictions, some provinces are getting even more strict and reimplementing 14 day quarantines.  The two largest nationalities to the Philippines as tourists are South Korean and Chinese.  When they returned to their respective countries, they would have to endure another strict quarantine system.  Without a travel bubble, it makes no sense for other Asian countries to want to travel to the PI.  And other Asian countries are never going to add the PI to their travel bubble.  Thats one of the parts the PI government forgets.  And as others have stated, you can buy those CDC cards online and fake your vaccination if you really wanted too. 

 

Heres a new system being put in place if you want to travel between provinces.  No tourist is going to endure this.

https://www.msn.com/en-ph/autos/news/commuting-to-another-province-complete-your-s-pass-registration-first-says-ltfrb/ar-AAKcfLd?ocid=msedgdhp

 

Here is an excerpt.  

1. Only those passengers who have registered with the S-Pass, upon presentation of proof thereof, including prior communication, travel coordination permit (TCP), and travel pass-through permit (TPP) shall be allowed to board the bus, in order to ensure compliance with the travel requirements of their destination LGUs

 

 

Edited May 22, 2021 by flicks1998

[Joe Kano 327]

3 hours ago, Cyberfx1024 said:

They already have had people bring fake documents in regards to PCR tests so it wouldn't surprise me one bit if someone actually uses fake vaccine documents. It is actually talked about on one of their official releases that if you bring fake documents that is subject to deportation

The US vaccine cards are easily reproduced on home computer/printer.  There is nothing special about them.  This is another reason why I don't see having the vaccine will let you enter Philippines.   It will be when the Philippines finally get a handle on covid and start to get their people vaccinated.

 

Even the USA doesn't care about having the vaccine to get into the USA, they still want a test 3 day before entry, I suspect this will go away later this year.

[top_secret 2,421]

51 minutes ago, Joe Kano said:

The US vaccine cards are easily reproduced on home computer/printer.  There is nothing special about them.  This is another reason why I don't see having the vaccine will let you enter Philippines.

I would suspect that 'most' people wont go around forging documents for international travel.  Sure a few knuckleheads will, but even if you get like a 5% forgery rate.  Then the vaccine cards would be like 95% effective, which is about the same as the effectiveness rate of the vaccine itself.  Nothing is perfect.  Probably even most of the knucklehead who might forge a vax card, wouldn't be dumb enough to risk getting fined, deported, backlisted, made an example of for the local media, or much much much worse, by presenting a forged document to BI in a country that could be prone to witch hunts on that topic.   Although yea, certainly there will be someone up the the challenge of "being that dumb".

[flicks1998 1,044]

https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/2119943/some-jabs-help-nations-recover-faster-than-others

 

This article specifically highlights the PI.  It appears people are not even being told which type of vaccine they get as the early evidence is that Moderna and Pfizer work better and people are lining up for those vaccines.  However, early data has shown that mixing the vaccines should not be done, but if your not told what vaccine you get in the first shot, you cant prepare for the 2nd shot.  And then on top of all of that, with the Philippines (as well as other developing countries) probably taking over a year to vaccinate their people, they will all be due their booster shot before the population has received their first shots. 

 

Then you could continue and look at all of the OFW who want to get back overseas and work, but they wont even have a clue what they have been vaccinated with which leads to places such as the EU who will open to Americans, but only if they have been vaccinated with Pfizer, Moderna or J&J.  Sinopharm (at the moment) is not approved, along with Sputnik.  So if any of these main OFW countries require certain types of vaccines, nobody can prove they have had it.  Its a huge mess that will never stop and highlights one of the fatal flaws of the PI education system on not teaching how to plan ahead as well as cause and effect.  

Edited May 22, 2021 by flicks1998

[seekingthetruth 1,246]

14 hours ago, flicks1998 said:

https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/2119943/some-jabs-help-nations-recover-faster-than-others

 

This article specifically highlights the PI.  It appears people are not even being told which type of vaccine they get as the early evidence is that Moderna and Pfizer work better and people are lining up for those vaccines.  However, early data has shown that mixing the vaccines should not be done, but if your not told what vaccine you get in the first shot, you cant prepare for the 2nd shot.  And then on top of all of that, with the Philippines (as well as other developing countries) probably taking over a year to vaccinate their people, they will all be due their booster shot before the population has received their first shots. 

 

Then you could continue and look at all of the OFW who want to get back overseas and work, but they wont even have a clue what they have been vaccinated with which leads to places such as the EU who will open to Americans, but only if they have been vaccinated with Pfizer, Moderna or J&J.  Sinopharm (at the moment) is not approved, along with Sputnik.  So if any of these main OFW countries require certain types of vaccines, nobody can prove they have had it.  Its a huge mess that will never stop and highlights one of the fatal flaws of the PI education system on not teaching how to plan ahead as well as cause and effect.  

No, this has been clarified.  They will tell you what vaccine it is when you arrive and you have to option to not take it.  They are just try to avoid the mad rush that happened when a facility announced that they would give the Pfizer vaccine.

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/05/19/998139555/do-people-need-to-know-which-covid-19-vaccine-theyre-getting-one-country-says-no

 

From now on, only people already in line at a vaccination site will be told which shot they'll get and "if they do not like the vaccines that are given during that time, then they go to the end of the line," 

Edited May 23, 2021 by seekingthetruth

[flicks1998 1,044]

1 hour ago, seekingthetruth said:

No, this has been clarified.  They will tell you what vaccine it is when you arrive and you have to option to not take it.  They are just try to avoid the mad rush that happened when a facility announced that they would give the Pfizer vaccine.

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/05/19/998139555/do-people-need-to-know-which-covid-19-vaccine-theyre-getting-one-country-says-no

 

From now on, only people already in line at a vaccination site will be told which shot they'll get and "if they do not like the vaccines that are given during that time, then they go to the end of the line," 

So another example of mass process failure. First tell the people they won’t know what they will get, then only tell them when they are in line and if it’s Sinovac or Sputnik watch half of

them walk away further delaying the country from vaccinating their citizens as they wait for a preferred brand that may never come. 

[seekingthetruth 1,246]

On 5/22/2021 at 9:13 PM, Kby175 said:

Maybe I should have said Thailand instead they are opening up July 1st for vaccinated travelers, but yes I get your point. It's been a long tine since I have seen my family in person so I am getting my hopes up.  

 

I am still planning on going to the Philippines for the months of November and December provided they allow vaccinated tourists. 

A friend of mine said he saw a CNN story where they were at the press conference about this, and something was stated that I have not seen in this thread.  They said that vaccinated tourists will only have to do 7 days quarantine instead of 14.  To me, that is just plain stupid.  However, it is not set in stone yet.

 

Someone like yourself would probably endure that, as will others whose main purpose is meet with or reunite with family.  However, "real" tourists, are not going to waste their time with the Philippines if other tropical resort countries do not have the quarantine for vaccinated tourists.  They will choose a country where they can enjoy their holiday.

 

The Philippines is going to be in bad shape until they get the real tourists and their money to visit.

 

[Joe Kano 327]

As long as Duterte is President everyone in Philippines is doomed.  He didn't secure any vaccines and almost everything he has done in regards to Covid has been wrong and proven to not work.

 

Duterte started out strong on drugs/crime and now is a joke as President and has proven himself of not being able to handle the Covid crisis.

 

I hope his daughter doesn't become President in May 2022, I read where she said she wouldn't run for President, but she has followed her father footsteps in Davao as Mayor.

 

The only hope for Philippines is for other countries to donate vaccines to them so they can get their population vaccinated.