The government on Tuesday ruled out the expansion of the Luzon-wide lockdown to the entire country in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The implementation of community quarantines in Mindanao and the Visayas has been good. There’s no possibility that we will lock down the entire Mindanao or the whole of the Visayas,” COVID-19 reponse chief implementer Carlito Galvez Jr. told radio dzMM.
Galvez’s assurance came as experts at the University of the Philippines warned that while the Luzon-wide lockdown has achieved “relative success,” there could still be outbreaks in Metro Manila and 15 provinces.
The Philippines currently has the most number of COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia with 5,223 as of Tuesday, the study by the UP COVID-19 Pandemic Response Team said.
“Based on these trends, one can estimate about 9,000 to 44,000 possible cases reported by the end of April 2020,” the report said.
While the country looks to restarting the economy, the government should also prepare for outbreaks in 13 areas in Luzon, two provinces in the Visayas and one in Mindanao, the UP study said.
Based on the group’s mathematical model, these provinces registered a probability of more than 90 percent that they would experience a COVID-19 outbreak, said Dr. Teodoro Herbosa, UP executive vice president and co-leader of the study group, in an interview with ABS-CBN News.
Aside from Metro Manila, the study identified the provinces as: Aklan, Bataan, Batangas, Benguet, Bulacan, Cavite, Cebu, Davao Del Sur, Laguna, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Pangasinan, Quezon, Rizal, and Tarlac.
One option, the UP group said, is to continue the enhanced community quarantine in high-risk areas, and implement stricter measures in those with an even higher probability of an outbreak.
Others with “80 to less than 90-percent probability” of an outbreak may be covered by a less stringent “general community quarantine.”
“Successful as it may seem, an Enhanced Community Quarantine covering a wide area may not be sustainable over the long run,” the UP study said.
“Our best recourse after April 30 is to implement graduated activation of Enhanced Community Quarantine depending on the level of risk in certain areas at a given time.”
On Tuesday, the President said he would lift the ECQ over Luzon only if a vaccine, antibody or medicine to cure COVID-19 is available to Filipinos.
In a televised address during a meeting with select Cabinet members, President Rodrigo Duterte insisted that Filipinos stay at home during the quarantine because the country would still need to endure two to three waves of the epidemic before they would see the end of the lockdown entering its fifth week.
“There’s no end in sight. When will it end, we have no clue. And our numbers are increasing,” the President said while reading the latest tally of COVID-19 infections.
“At this time, we need to treat the sick, we need to feed our people,” he said, as he admonished hospitals for turning away potential COVID-19 patients.
His remarks were made on the eve of government-led mass testing for coronavirus infections, which official Department of Health numbers put at just under 5,000 on Monday.
The President also discussed the utility of the National ID system to identify those who would need government aid, the distribution of aid to 18 million families most affected by the quarantine, observing social distancing, the United States “being part of the problem,” and the temporary travel ban on medical professionals and frontline workers from leaving the country.
In related developments during the same meeting:
- The Finance Department proposed a wage subsidy for employees of small businesses, as Undersecretary Karl Chua said 3.4 million workers are affected by quarantine measures.
- Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion said the government needed to plan “on how to gradually shift towards reviving the economy” because if not, “many of our Filipino brothers will suffer.”
- Duterte ordered authorities manning checkpoints to let trucks and vehicles carrying food and essential goods from the provinces to pass unhampered to their destinations.
- The President told medical workers to hail police vehicles to take them home, especially late at night.
Duterte reiterated several points raised in his previous late-night addresses, including his warning on discriminating against health workers, for local government leaders to “not play around” with quarantine efforts, and for the Left and other critics to inform him “if you have a better way of dealing with the problem.”
Filipinos needed to brace for a longer lockdown, the President said, because the country was just in the first wave of the epidemic that has claimed over 115,000 lives worldwide, including at least 315 in the Philippines.
“This doesn’t end with those at the hospital, those being treated now, that’s just the first wave. This will have a second wave. While those hit [by the disease] are dying, the others that are being infected, they are the second wave. That’s why you should maintain the social distancing rule,” Duterte said.
The President promised that if a cure for the coronavirus was already “tested medically” and made available to the country, he would lift the ECQ, which he had extended to April 30 from an initial one-month lockdown that would have ended at midnight of April 12, Sunday.
In an interview with the ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC), the country’s deputy social economic planning chief said the Philippines is looking for ways to restore the public’s confidence in the economy.
Under lockdown for a month and with 17 more days to go, some 60 percent of consumers polled by the National Economic and Development Authority said they would not buy durable goods in the next 12 months.
They are also foregoing travel, NEDA Undersecretary Rosemarie Edillon told ANC.
“We need to address the uncertainty. We need to build confidence in health systems capacity,” said Edillon.
The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases on Tuesday said it is still studying on what measures it will take after the ECQ expires on April 30.
Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said discussions were still ongoing, saying no decisions have yet been made.
Among these decisions is which industries will be allowed to reopen and who among the labor force could get back to work.
The government will also decide what to do with the public transportation system, which has been shut down during the lockdown.
In other developments:
- Large manufacturing companies expect a gradual reopening of local businesses as the rest of the world moves toward that direction. Integrated Micro-Electronics Inc. Chief Executive Arthur Tan said the rest of the world is now operating or poised to restart their own economies. In an online forum by the Management Association of the Philippines, Tan called for more extensive testing so that
- Senate President Vicente Sotto III said he would rather be safe than lift the lockdown before any solution to the virus is in sight. Reacting to the same issue, Senator Imee Marcos said she suspects only a partial easing may be allowed at the end of the month, citing warnings about a second wave of infection that occurred in other countries.
- Health Secretary Francisco Duque III inspected the Ninoy Aquino Stadium which has been designated as a quarantine facility for COVID-19 patients. To date, some 112-bed units have been installed.
