Going back to calibrated lockdown

As succinctly put by President Rodrigo Duterte, the lifting of the lockdown in many parts of our country does not mean we are already out of the woods from the global pandemic called 2019 coronavirus disease, or COVID-19. Lifted out of stringent lockdown rules are eight regions classified as “low risk” in terms of new cases of local community transmission of COVID-19. This takes effect on May 15, or this is after the second extension of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) lapses midnight this Friday.

Downgraded to general community quarantine (GCQ) were eight other regions classified as “moderate risk” for new COVID-19 transmissions. Only three areas classified as “high-risk” for new COVID-19 transmission, namely, Laguna, Cebu and the national capital region (NCR) will remain under the so-called “modified” ECQ. They will remain under these new classifications on the same day until the next review before the end of this month, May 30.

President Duterte cited the general advisory of the World Health Organization (WHO) for COVID-infected countries like the Philippines to go slow on the lifting of lockdowns, or face second or even third wave of the contagion. Saying he is not into “scare tactics,” the former Davao City Mayor cautioned the Filipinos from letting their guards down, lest they become part of the still growing number of fatalities from this deadly flu-like infection.

After the meeting of the Inter-Agency Task Force for Emerging and Infectious Disease (IATF-EID) last Monday night, the taped choice cuts of the President’s address was aired by Malacanang yesterday. But the Chief Executive did not go into details except designating his presidential spokesman Harry Roque to make the official announcement of the specific areas where lockdowns will be lifted, those placed under GCQ, and under the “modified” ECQ.

In his virtual presser yesterday, Roque clarified the President considered the various recommendations from the business sector led by presidential adviser for entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion and those from the 17 Mayors from the Metro Manila Council (MMC). These recommendations and proposals were first tackled by the IATF — chaired by Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Dr. Francisco Duque III — before President Duterte finally acted on them.

Concepcion has been pushing for a shift to the less stringent ECQ like those in Metro Manila while allowing local government units (LGUs) to lockdown barangays if there would be resurgence in the cases of COVID-19 infection.

Metro Manila Mayors, however, were divided whether or not to stay under ECQ for another 15 days.

Speaking with one voice though through the MMC, the Mayors submitted three recommendations to the IATF: extending the ECQ for another 15 days; moving to GCQ; and modified GCQ where LGUs can impose a lockdown of barangays if the situation calls for it.

In the end, Roque disclosed, President Duterte made the final decision on the basis of the IATF discussions. Except for those lifted out of lockdowns, Roque pointed out the areas under GCQ and modified ECQ still remain under quarantine precisely to prevent new escalation of COVID-19 cases that have notably slowed down in many parts of the Philippines. Roque, however, admitted the IATF has to yet to go over the other new specific guidelines. He disclosed these matters would be taken up in the regular IATF meeting with the President at Malacanang today.

Actually, there is no need to re-invent the wheels, so to speak, because the specific guidelines for calibrated or graduated scale of lockdown are already spelled out early on by the IATF on March 11. In fact, President Duterte approved these guidelines as early as during the 11th IATF meeting at Malacanang when he decided to place the entire Metro Manila under a month-long ECQ starting March 15.

However, a few days before the Metro Manila-wide ECQ could even take effect, several more cases of local community transmissions of COVID-19-infection erupted in a number of Luzon provinces. Consequently, the President widened the month-long lockdown to include the entire Luzon island.

From then on, the calibrated lockdown guidelines were set aside and all decisions have been centralized to the IATF.

In that March 11 IATF meeting, the President sternly advised LGU executives to align with the IATF guidelines the localized community quarantine in their respective jurisdictions. Under these still existing guidelines, the IATF provided, among other things, the following calibrated lockdown response to COVID-19 infection cases:

— A barangay-wide quarantine is advised when there are at least two positive COVID-19 cases belonging to different households in the same barangay;

— A municipality/city-wide quarantine shall be imposed when there are at least two positive COVID-19 cases belonging to different barangays in the same municipality; and,

— A province-wide quarantine, on the other hand, is advised when there are at least two positive COVID-19 cases belonging to different municipalities, component cities or independent component cities in the same province.

This was during the early stages while the WHO has not declared yet the contagion at pandemic level. At that time, there were just 52 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country, with five fatalities. As of yesterday, there were 25 new fatalities that brought to 751 the total number of deaths in our country due to COVID-19 infection.

For unknown reasons, these calibrated lockdown guidelines were not instituted and a Luzon-wide ECQ prevailed instead. Going on two months almost, the ECQ was supposed to buy time to “capacitate”-- another favorite term of our government officials to improve our country’s health care system to cope with COVID-19 pandemic.

There is no need to belabor how COVID-19 has brought down our economic growth for the first three months this year to almost zero. That was accurately projected already by the economic team no less of the President. It’s about time getting back to calibrated lockdown in the transition to the so-called “new normal” after the COVID-19 contagion.