Quarantined

Just to reduce the burden on state security forces and health workers, the government may want to expand the community quarantine to parts of “mega Manila” – to include several areas in neighboring Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal where most of the four million daily Metro Manila transients live.

As workers and suppliers from these areas will be allowed to go in and out of Metro Manila every day, anyway, why not reduce the hassle on civilians – plus the burden on state personnel and resources for checking IDs and body temperature?

No one is coming to the National Capital Region for sightseeing or malling these days; in fact the rest of the country is avoiding the NCR like the plague. So only those who really need to enter the capital region, mainly to earn a living, will do so.

There’s that other point about avoiding infected Metro Manilans: the community quarantine fever is spreading across the country, like the coronavirus disease 2019 contagion.

As of yesterday afternoon, news reports said COVID-19 community quarantine was also being imposed in President Duterte’s home city of Davao, the entire Ilocos Norte, Oriental Mindoro, Cainta in Rizal and a barangay in Abra.

Batanes is barring the entry of non-residents while Cebu is closed to inbound domestic travel. Bacolod City, which I visited only last week, could not decide what to do with 890 people from Metro Manila who had arrived onboard a ship.

The Department of Health said all people who left Metro Manila after Code Red Sub-level 2 alert was raised would be considered PUIs or persons under investigation for COVID-19 and should undergo 14-day self-quarantine.

It’s doubtful that all of those 890 people would do this – especially if they are daily wage earners.

And it’s doubtful that the horde of people who left Metro Manila over the weekend before the community quarantine took effect would heed the advice.

On Saturday afternoon, I passed by bumper-to-bumper southbound traffic along the South Luzon Expressway, which stretched from the area near the interchange going to the NAIA Terminal 3 all the way past Alabang. There was also a scramble for outbound domestic flights at the NAIA.

I don’t think the people were rushing to go on vacation. All those people were leaving the NCR to beat the community quarantine, and now they are all over the country.

So it looks likely that COVID-19 will spread nationwide anyway. Will every region then be quarantined from each other?

We might have to look at the examples of other countries that have eschewed lockdowns and instead chosen to improve testing and rapid response capability, boost monitoring of flu symptoms, and tighten observance of social distancing and self-quarantine.

China cannot be the model: it has far more resources for both public health and security enforcement, it can be a police state when it wants, and its communist system has broad social safety nets for its citizens in a total lockdown.

The idea is to minimize economic disruption even while moving to contain the contagion ASAP without too much curtailment of mobility – easier said than done, especially in free societies.

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As the World Health Organization (WHO) pointed out, even before it officially declared a COVID pandemic, the world has entered “uncharted territory.”

So each country is charting out its respective response. A WHO official said lockdowns are not the answer. Still, we should cooperate as best we can with our government, as it tries out various responses to the public health threat.

We will all be taking a hit, but the problem is the capacity for recovery. Obviously, big businesses have the best chances for recovery; smaller ones may not survive. Daily wage earners are devastated; they might avoid testing and 14-day quarantine even if symptoms emerge.

The poor are also the ones who suffer from all the hoarding and panic buying by those with the money plus refrigerator and pantry space to buy everything in bulk.

We don’t know if the panic buying would have been avoided with better messaging from the start. A reassurance that supermarkets, wet markets and drug stores would stay open, and that supply chains in and out of Manila would not be disrupted could have been made before the community quarantine was announced.

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Administration officials had taken pains to avoid using the word “lockdown” – which tends to conjure up images of people forced to stay at home at gunpoint by state forces wearing hazmat suits.

Keeping shopping malls, all retail outlets and restaurants open in fact was meant to minimize the feeling of being caged in Metro Manila. As Trade Undersecretary Ruth Castelo had told us on One News’ “The Chiefs” last Thursday after attending the meeting of the task force on COVID-19, they were aiming for “business as usual… only slower.”

Several task force members’ mouths must have dropped when President Duterte himself opted for candor late Thursday night and said “community quarantine” was effectively a lockdown by land, sea and air. Since then, however, officials have been avoiding or minimizing the use of the “L” word.

The land quarantine in particular needed another press briefing for clarity. Before midnight, probably after being inundated with questions, officials of the Department of the Interior and Local Government clarified that people who work in Metro Manila but live outside won’t be barred from the capital region. Supply vehicles are also allowed to come and go.

The clarification came too late, and was drowned out by the “L” word. The panic buying began Thursday night; in one large supermarket that usually operated only until midnight, there were still long lines of shoppers way past closing time.

In panic buying, social distancing goes out the window; everyone is within coughing distance of each other in the supermarkets and drug stores.

Workers living outside the NCR will have to present their work IDs. The logistics involved in this can be mind-boggling, if you consider that there are about four million daytime transients in Metro Manila and only 40,000 cops to be fielded for the community quarantine.

Now Metro Manila mayors want to add to the hassle by imposing a curfew from 8 p.m., dinnertime, until 5 a.m.

They will have to contend with the hundreds of thousands of night shift employees in business process outsourcing, a couple thousand more people mostly Chinese working in offshore gaming, plus the personnel of 24-hour convenience stores, pharmacies and mass transportation – all of which will still be allowed to operate – apart from the health personnel and frontline service workers who are on standby around the clock, and the suppliers who normally arrive in Metro Manila between midnight and dawn to deliver vegetables, fruits, fish and meat.

The government is doing what it can, within limited resources. Like the rest of the planet, it’s a trial and error for our country. We can only cross our fingers, and hope for everyone’s safety particularly of our health workers who are in the front line of this battle. We’ll see what happens today, whether it will turn out to be manic Monday.