Some 138 repatriated overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from Dhaka, Bangladesh arrived at the Davao International Airport (DIA) on Thursday evening.

Davao City Tourism Office Chief and Airport Monitoring head Generose Tecson, in an interview Friday, said all passengers underwent reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing 48 hours before their flight.

“Also to allay fears on coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) infection, they are RT-PCR tested and we do the quarantining to ensure that they are not a carrier of the virus,” she said.

She added that the repatriates will be swabbed on the seventh day and will continue their quarantine until the 14th day.

Bangladesh is among the seven countries covered by travel restrictions imposed by the government to prevent further spread of the highly transmissible Delta Covid-19 variant, which was first detected in India.

A One-Stop-Shop at the DIA was set up to screen, identify, and isolate arriving international passengers to prevent and minimize the spread of Covid-19 and to facilitate and manage the arrival of returning Filipinos.

Tecson said on July 18, around 350 OFWs from Dubai, United Arab Emirates are expected to arrive in the city.

Meanwhile, Mayor Sara Z. Duterte also allayed fears of a potential rise of Covid-19 cases with the acceptance of repatriates.

“There are international flights that would come in. They will be in a bubble wrap and will go directly to an isolation hotel. From there, they will undergo the needed Covid-19 processing, so there will be hotels designated for these groups,” she said in a radio interview on July 12.

Under Davao’s “bubble wrap”, all arriving passengers will be brought to their isolation hotels where they will undergo swab tests for Covid-19 and be locked in for 14 days.

Duterte is also making sure hotel workers can safely cater to OFWs’ needs by fast-tracking their vaccination.

She clarified that only international repatriation flights are accepted here. (PNA)