Philippines reopens borders and schools, eyes life with the virus

With infections falling and no threat on the horizon, the Philippines is reopening its borders and schools as it resumes its pivot towards living with Covid-19.

The government is also considering putting Metro Manila under its most relaxed level of quarantine restrictions since the coronavirus was first detected in the country two years ago.

"The mayors are ready," said Mr Romando Artes, general manager of the Metro Manila Development Authority.

Metro Manila - an urban sprawl of 16 cities and home to over 13 million - is now at "low risk" for coronavirus infections, according to an independent group of researchers.

The area's reproduction rate, which measures how fast a virus is spreading or receding, is now at just 0.25. A rate of one means the outbreak is contained.

New cases in Metro Manila have fallen below 1,000 from as high as 11,000 early last month, with the percentage of people testing positive down to 9.1 per cent on Wednesday, from 15 per cent last week.

The Health Ministry reported some 4,500 cases across the Philippines yesterday, down from over 40,000 at the peak of the Omicron surge last month.

The country still has the second-worst outbreak in South-east Asia, after Indonesia, with more than 3.6 million Covid-19 cases and at least 54,000 deaths.

But with the Omicron-fuelled outbreak receding, the Philippines has reopened its borders to all fully vaccinated tourists.

Tourist arrivals plunged to 1.48 million in 2020 - the first year of the pandemic - from close to eight million the previous year.

Tourism director Virgilio Maguigad said in an online forum that 90 per cent of those working in hotels, resorts, restaurants, meeting halls and other leisure facilities were fully vaccinated.

More than 500 schools, meanwhile, have already started in-person classes. The government is looking at allowing some 6,000 more schools to reopen. The schools have been shuttered since March 2020.

The government is looking at bringing down Metro Manila's alert level to level 1, its lowest ever. That will allow most companies to operate at full capacity, including restaurants, cafes, bars, hotels, salons and other service firms. Offices may also start to see their employees return after two years of working from home.

The Philippines has four alert levels, with level 4 - essentially a sweeping lockdown - the highest. Most parts of the country are now under level 3 or 2.

Lowering the alert level is seen as allowing the economy to recover from a long recession and putting more people back to work.

Some 3.27 million Filipinos remained jobless as at December, slightly higher than the 3.16 million recorded a month earlier.

Property market analysts are expecting a slow recovery in the office segment, starting in the second half of the year.

Still, some medical experts warn that the country may be easing restrictions too quickly.

"We're still in the pandemic period. We still need to stay in the alert level 2," said Dr Rontgene Solante, head of the Adult Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine Unit of San Lazaro Hospital. "It's too early and I think it is too drastic to change to a lower alert level like 1."