According to the agency’s official statement, the Filipino tourist, who came to the island-province, was a nurse at one of the hospitals in Singapore from which she traveled and arrived in the Philippines on February 26.
Given the situation, the authority added, the tourist not need be quarantined because, aside from being asymptomatic, she was not exposed to the disease because she did not provide direct care to any COVID-19 patient in the hospital. Moreover, the health authorities also cited that Singapore was currently not among the countries that have been issued with travel ban and restrictions as determined by the Inter-Agency Task Force on COVID-19.
The statement came after the presence of the group of tourists that visited Batanes reportedly caused concerns as some residents even claimed that the disease may have already reached their province. But the DOH was quick to assure the public that the government was “proactively handling the urgent concern and continuously working to protect the people of Cagayan Valley from a possible infection brought about by the COVID-19.”