Vaccination required for on-site workers in areas with sufficient Covid vaccines, says IATF
(Eagle News) — All on-site workers in establishments located in areas where there are sufficient COVID-19 vaccine supplies need to be vaccinated, according to the updated testing requirements for COVID-19 of the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF).
“In areas where there are sufficient supplies of COVID-19 vaccines, all establishments and employers in the public and private sector shall require their eligible employees who are tasked to do on-site work to be vaccinated against COVID-19,” a Malacanang statement on the latest IATF update said.
For those who are not yet vaccinated, they should undergo RT-PCR tests once every two weeks or get weekly antigen tests for on-site work purposes.
But this testing requirement is only for areas under Alert Level 2, the Palace said.
-Exemptions to Covid testing-
Also exempted from the testing requirement are employees who had COVID-19 infection within the last 90 days, or those with alternative working arrangements such as a work-from-home set-up that do no require on-site reporting, it said.
“Meanwhile, employees in the public sector, including local government units, may cover the costs of the RT-PCR or antigen tests to be administered, subject to availability of funds, and civil service, accounting and auditing rules and regulations,” the Palace said.
But Malacanang clarified that such “testing requirements mentioned above shall be waived for areas under Alert Level 1 classification, subject to the implementation of clinical-based management, including symptomatic testing.”
These testing requirements “shall be reinstated in areas under Alert Level 2 classification or higher,” it said.
The IATF released its updated testing requirement on Monday, June 27, amid a reported increase in the COVID-19 positivity rate in several areas in the country. At least nine areas in the country, including Metro Manila, have breached the World Health Organization (WHO) Covid-19 positivity threshold of five percent (5 percent).
Metro Manila’s COVID-19 positivity rate continued to increase, reaching 5.9 percent from 3.9 percent the previous week, according to OCTA Research.
Rizal province also reached a high of 11.9 percent Covid positivity rate as of Saturday, June 25.
After Rizal, the areas with the high Covid positivity rates are Laguna with 7.5 percent, South Cotabato with 7.4 percent, Cavite with 6 percent, Metro Manila or the National Capital Region and Pampanga which both recorded 5.9 percent, Cagayan with 5.8 percent, Iloilo with 5.7 percent, and Batangas with 5.6 percent.
(Eagle News Service)