NEDA wants GCQ for NCR this May

MANILA, Philippines — Metro Manila needs to downgrade to general community quarantine (GCQ) this May, and the government must improve the prevent, detect, isolate, treat and recover (PDITR) strategy to bring down COVID-19 rates in the region, National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) director general Karl Kendrick Chua said yesterday.

“We have to move out of MECQ by middle or end of the month, we cannot be in MECQ for the entire year. Last year we were in a combination of GCQ, MECQ and ECQ. We have to use these two months very wisely that we are in this bubble to enhance our PDITR strategy so that we open the economy as soon as we can. That is the focus of the government,” Chua said.

Chua argued that Metro Manila can no longer remain under enhanced community quarantine or modified ECQ because of the region’s large contribution to economic performance: 42.6 percent of the services sector and 20.8 percent of the industrial sector, the country’s second largest.

Under GCQ, about half of businesses can resume operations and accommodate up to 30 percent capacity of venues for gatherings.

Chua said NEDA is working with local government units (LGUs) and government agencies to automate the manual contact tracing system that can cut detection period from seven to five days, possibly halving the number of new daily cases. He also advocated for fast-tracking the vaccination rollout to reduce transmission rates and allow economic reopening.

Lifting restrictions

Malacañang yesterday maintained that quarantine restrictions in NCR Plus (Metro Manila, Laguna, Rizal, Bulacan and Cavite) may be relaxed this month if the COVID-19 reproduction number continues to go down and health care capacity improves.

“As long as we maintain our R naught (reproduction number) and if we lower the attack rate and we continue to have additional health care capacity, these, based on the formula, may warrant GCQ but that’s a decision to be made by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) as a collegial body,” presidential spokesman Harry Roque said.

Over the past two months, the number of intensive care unit (ICU) beds for COVID-19 had increased by almost 400, Department of Health (DOH) Health Undersecretary and treatment czar Leopoldo Vega said.

“I am pleased to report that we have a total of 1,148 ICU beds. In March we only had 781 beds so this is a difference of 367 beds,” he added.

Prior to this, he claimed that the utilization rate of ICU beds was “high risk” at 78 to 80 percent. Now, it hovers around 70 to 71 percent.

Prioritize NCR Plus

Speaker Lord Allan Velasco yesterday called on the IATF to prioritize NCR Plus areas in the vaccination rollout, given the high number of COVID-19 cases.

“As we await large supplies of vaccines to come in, we urge the IATF to prioritize NCR Plus and other urban centers in our vaccine rollout so we can quell the surge in new infections in those areas,” Velasco said.

Aside from NCR Plus areas, Velasco said the national government should also give priority vaccine allocation to Mega Cebu, Davao, Cagayan de Oro and other regional centers. – Alexis Romero, Sheila Crisostomo, Delon Porcalla