Quarantine in Philippines

[Centrals]

Thank you for your post. We were thinking of diving in the Philippines in September but hadn’t considered possible Covid complications. I think we’ll hold off until ? next year?

One Health Pass

www.onehealthpass.com.ph

Must be fully vaccinated + one booster shot. NO quarantine and pre arrival RT-PCR test required.

404

www.philippineairlines.com

Have a good insurance if you are unfortunately infected in the country and been denied to board the outbound flight home.

 

[dianna912]

We recently returned from a liveaboard trip to Tubbataha Reef in the Philippines. We ended up in lockdown in a government facility. This was a horrible experience to say the least. We were required to have a negative test before entering the Philippines, and one before we boarded the Discovery Palawan. We later learned that one guest had a questionable test result prior to boarding. 3 days into the trip, this guest took a self-test, and was Covid positive. The boat operator reported the information to the local authorities. They met the boat at the port upon our return. We were taken to a dirty, poorly maintained facility, where we were detained for 48 hours before going to a government controlled test site. Results of the government tests - 16 of 21 passengers positive and 0 of 27 crew positive. We self-administered rapid tests, which were all negative. We were asymptomatic. They held the positives in this facility for another 6 days. The conditions were deplorable! If we had any idea this would have happened, we never would have travelled 9,000 miles! If you are going on a liveaboard, find out the protocols for Covid outbreaks!

So you were negative? Rapid tests are not nearly as sensitive as rapid tests, so that is not surprising, but everyone being asymptomatic is. I was just on a liveaboard that had 70% positivity rate, and everyone that had it had some symptoms. All of the symptoms are easy to confuse with dive-related symptoms and being in heat, though, so people may just assume it’s part of multi-day diving. (Most of us did.)

 

[reefseeker2]

I just got back from a trip in Indonesia, all tested negative boarding boat, first day 1 covid, second day 2 more, next day 5 or 7, I lost count. 16 divers. 24 crew never got it. They were all better and negative after 2 days, and we all had a great time. Actually no one went crazy, just seemed normal. BTW I did some research on travel insurance, have not found one that would be worth it.

 

[Tippytoes12]

Did you manage to get some diving in ?

 

[Centrals]

I just got back from a trip in Indonesia, all tested negative boarding boat, first day 1 covid, second day 2 more, next day 5 or 7, I lost count. 16 divers. 24 crew never got it. They were all better and negative after 2 days, and we all had a great time. Actually no one went crazy, just seemed normal. BTW I did some research on travel insurance, have not found one that would be worth it.

"You all had great time"?
I had very mild Covid before and I don't think I would be able to dive for at least 3-4 days with dry cough, runny nose and sputum etc etc.
Would travel insurance cover missing prepaid dive?

 

[reefseeker2]

"You all had great time"?
I had very mild Covid before and I don't think I would be able to dive for at least 3-4 days with dry cough, runny nose and sputum etc etc.
Would travel insurance cover missing prepaid dive?

Maybe covid is getting weaker or maybe vax's are making it easier, no one knows for sure. It was an 11 day trip, only one person didn't dive for 3 days, everyone else just missed 2 day. I never tested positive I been close to many people that had covid, really close, I slept in same bed. I did have a cough for a day but like I said never tested positive. My dive buddy was one that caught it and I was in the hotel same room day before. Oddly in 2019 I was on same boat and had normal flu, (normal because we never heard of covid) I was burning up. I dove anyway, felt better in the water. __ I spent hours reading details on dive insurance, reading all the nightmares really, I came to conclusion it might work BUT NOT without a fight. My flight there business class is about the same cost of the boat. Plus all the domestic flights. There are some insurance that cost a few grand and few that cost few hundred, do you really think for a few hundred they will make you whole? My thought was if for some reason they would not let me on the boat, I would find a local land dive place. I been on this boat many times and I bet they would let me on another trip in the future if I missed out. (my guess or at least try to make it not so painful). FYI I had to show vac card for every plane, just for proof to myself that no one really cares I never showed my card, just showed my Mom's LOL.. Not once did I pull out mine. They all make believe they are looking. Plus in Jakarta you had to have this app on your phone to go to Malls, restaurants and I did, I showed them and it was a screen that said sorry no Internet connection. They all waved me in!

 

[drrich2]

Thank you for sharing your experience. Running into trouble in an unfamiliar foreign country is something many of us face the threat up, and we hope our number does not come up.

What I'm about to say will be controversial and unpopular, but I'd say this first bit is where things went south:

We later learned that one guest had a questionable test result prior to boarding. 3 days into the trip, this guest took a self-test, and was Covid positive. The boat operator reported the information to the local authorities. They met the boat at the port upon our return.

You left out a step, between 'this guest took a self-test' and 'the boat operator reported.' The step where 'this guest opened his mouth about it, which put the boat operator in a bind of having to report it, which derailed all the passengers' after-trip travel plans,' leading to:

We were taken to a dirty, poorly maintained facility, where we were detained for 48 hours before going to a government controlled test site. Results of the government tests - 16 of 21 passengers positive and 0 of 27 crew positive. We self-administered rapid tests, which were all negative. We were asymptomatic. They held the positives in this facility for another 6 days. The conditions were deplorable!

There will be a range of opinion on what such a guest should do. I'm fond of the path that doesn't derail everybody else's travel plans in favor of mandated confinement. You could wait till you're off the boat, notify your airline of your situation, and handle things privately. Other option is don't test yourself till you get home and maintain full deniability (you could wear a mask and try to social distance).

In fairness, if other people have, or are around, people with sniffles, sore throat, etc..., as easy as test kits are to get in a number of places, seems if they were really curious, they could test themselves privately.

Some people can make an argument for testing and notifying. The counter argument would be SARS-CoV-2 is so widespread that people are exposed intermittently anyway, and maybe it's time to accept that. Which some people will hotly deny.

I bring these things up not trying to change minds, but because increasingly as we go forward in dive tourism, these situations will arise.

3. Puerto Princesa is a tiny provincial town and the quarantine facility is probably set up for the local. Therefore foreign tourists might find it unacceptable.

Thanks for the notice it's a small place that might not be representative of the Philippines as a whole (or at least parts of them).

I am surprised at the sentiment the Philippines is a '3rd world' nation where divers shouldn't expect what Americans might consider reasonable basics (I'd say running water, A.C. or at least a good fan, electrical outlets, strong preference for western style toilet with toilet paper, at least fair wifi service).

Our hobby encourages people to travel and directly experience places and peoples and I'd rather it didn't come to American divers thinking only places like Grand Cayman are suitable. If someone is going to a home stay, okay, they hopefully know what they're getting into.

Given that SARS-CoV-2 seems endemic worldwide (we could argue on China), cases are common, and liveaboards combine sizable groups in close quarters for extended periods after traveling crowded airports and planes from abroad, if all it takes is one person deciding to test for cold-type symptoms and announcing a positive result to derail everybody's trip, that's a problem. And no, travel insurance is not a cure-all.

 

[drrich2]

Rapid tests are not nearly as sensitive as rapid tests

Did you mean to say not nearly as sensitive as PCR tests? If so, agreed. The problem with PCR is they are so sensitive that they can test positive well after the active infection is over in some people, due to residual viral fragments, from what I recall. I've been glad to see less mention of PCR tests over time because they can stay positive for weeks in some people.

24 crew never got it.

Which has me wondering it those guys are exposed so often, and have had it enough times with frequent 're-challenges' from repeat exposures that they are effectively immune most of the time.

Think about it; if 8 to 10 out of 16 divers (if I understood your count correctly) got COVID-19 and no crew did, then unless the crew weren't tested (yeah, let's go ahead and whack that potential hornets' nest, too, while discussing controversial choices). Do you know whether the crew were tested?

 

[Centrals]

Thanks for the notice it's a small place that might not be representative of the Philippines as a whole (or at least parts of them).

I am surprised at the sentiment the Philippines is a '3rd world' nation where divers shouldn't expect what Americans might consider reasonable basics (I'd say running water, A.C. or at least a good fan, electrical outlets, strong preference for western style toilet with toilet paper, at least fair wifi service).

And no, travel insurance is not a cure-all.

HK is not considered as 3rd world but I have read in our press that our public quarantine facilities had received various complaints ranging from quality of food, AC, hot water, immediate assistance, wifi connection etc etc. It is impossible to provide good accommodation standard in such a short notice for thousands of people.
I took all those complaints with lump of salt.
There is no way that travel insurance can cover any unforeseeable event. Read the small print.

Think about it; if 8 to 10 out of 16 divers (if I understood your count correctly) got COVID-19 and no crew did, then unless the crew weren't tested (yeah, let's go ahead and whack that potential hornets' nest, too, while discussing controversial choices). Do you know whether the crew were tested?

I am not aware that people can develop permanent immunity to Covid(variants included).

 

[drrich2]

I am not aware that people can develop permanent immunity to Covid(variants included).

Neither am I, but one must have the ability to at least transiently develop immunity to one strain or else we couldn't recover and clear it from our bodies. If that person is in a job where frequently re-expose happens, it might keep the immunity up. Yes, as the virus mutates, that person might get symptomatic again, albeit hopefully not markedly so.

It's conjecture on my part, and I'm not proposing anyone deliberately seek to take this approach. I'm just saying that if several divers and no crew got the virus, if we presume this difference isn't simply because the divers were tested and the crew weren't, and the crew were exposed to the divers pretty often, it seems to me reasonable that maybe the crew have strong immunity because they're exposed so often.

But if they were out of that role several months with no viral exposure, then someone with the latest Omicron descendent (or similar) coughed in their face, they might well get sick again!

It is impossible to provide good accommodation standard in such a short notice for thousands of people.
I took all those complaints with lump of salt.

Yes. Earlier in the pandemic we often heard of hospital ICUs packed, physicians and nurses worn out from the burden of COVID-19 related care, etc... And COVID-19 is still a thing, but I don't hear nearly as much about it straining systems in the U.S.

I wonder to what extent large numbers of people are being quarantined elsewhere?

Another big issue is the nation in question. China is prone to quarantine and shut-down approaches, from what I understand. The U.S. is not (now). How much of a strain COVID-19 is putting on the Philippines right now?