MANILA: The Philippines has stopped doctors, nurses, medics and other health care workers from going abroad while it needs their skills to meet the threat of the coronavirus spreading at home, a foreign affairs official said.
The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration issued the order on April 2, though it was only made public on Friday.
The aim is “to prioritize human resource allocation for the national health care system,” according to the resolution posted on Twitter by Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Brigido Dulay.
The ban will remain in place until the Philippines ends its state of emergency and countries that would hire the medical personnel lift their coronavirus-related travel restrictions.
As of Friday, the Philippines had recorded 4,195 cases of coronavirus, with 221 deaths.
The government has also suspended negotiations for bilateral labor agreements covering government-to-government deployment of health workers.
Philippines stops health workers going abroad to fight coronavirus
https://arab.news/v4gt8
Philippines stops health workers going abroad to fight coronavirus
- Ban will remain in place until the Philippines ends its state of emergency
- As of Friday, the Philippines had recorded 4,195 cases of coronavirus, with 221 deaths
More than 9,000 flights canceled as major winter storm bears down across much of US
- “Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills are spreading into the area and will remain in place into Monday,” the agency said on X
DALLAS: More than 9,000 flights across the US set to take off over the weekend have been canceled as a major storm expected to wreak havoc across much of the country threatens to knock out power for days and snarl major roadways.
Roughly 140 million people were under a winter storm warning from New Mexico to New England.
The National Weather Service forecast warns of widespread heavy snow and a band of catastrophic ice stretching from east Texas to North Carolina.
Forecasters say damage, especially in areas pounded by ice, could rival that of a hurricane.
Ice and sleet that hit northern Texas overnight were moving toward the central part of the state on Saturday, the National Weather Service in Fort Worth said.
“Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills are spreading into the area and will remain in place into Monday,” the agency said on X.
Low temperatures will be mostly in the single digits for the next few nights, with wind chills as low as minus 24 Celsius.
About 68,000 power outages were reported across the country at 8 a.m. ET, about 27,600 of them in Texas. Snow and sleet continued to fall in Oklahoma.
After sweeping through the South, the storm was expected to move into the Northeast, dumping about a foot of snow from Washington through New York and Boston, the weather service predicted.
Temperatures reached minus 34 C just before dawn in rural Lewis County and other parts of upstate New York after days of heavy snow.
Governors in more than a dozen states sounded the alarm about the turbulent weather ahead, declaring emergencies or urging people to stay home.
