Groups of doctors and medical personnel are calling for Metro Manila to be placed under Enhanced Community Quarantine anew. They said they needed this “time out” to refine their strategy in the battle against COVID-19.
In an open letter to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, the group made up of 80 organizations representing various professions in the medical field said there is a need to reassess the current strategy against COVID-19.
“We are waging a losing battle against COVID-19, and we need to draw up a consolidated, definitive plan of action,” went the unified statement of the various organizations as read by Philippine Medical Association president Dr. Jose Santiago during an online press conference headed by the Philippine College of Physicians last Saturday morning.
“We propose that the ECQ be used as a timeout to refine our pandemic control strategies addressing the following urgent conditions or problems: hospital workforce efficiency; failure of contact tracing and quarantine; transportation safety; workplace safety; public compliance with self-protection; social amelioration,” the statement further read.
There we have it, straight from the horse’s mouth. Our foremost frontliners themselves are saying that in that part of the county they are not winning against the coronavirus. And that the current strategy being implemented by the government doesn’t seem to be working.
The statement goes on for a while, but the gist remains the same.
Those groups are describing what is currently happening in Metro Manila. However, it’s not hard to imagine other areas in the country that are now just opening up --including Cebu Province and Cebu City-- ending up in the same situation as they scale back from more restrictive quarantine measures.
As our medical experts paint the bleak picture, we cannot blame the government for painting the rosy one. They have to maintain control after all, and giving the impression that they are not is sure to cause panic among the people and worsen the already-bad situation.
However, we hope that the government at least acknowledges the words of the experts and people in the field and follow their advice.