MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the implementation of a “modified” enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in Metro Manila, Laguna and Cebu City that continue to be considered “high-risk” in the spread of COVID-19.
This after Duterte approved Tuesday the recommendation of the Inter Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Disease on the gradual lifting of ECQ.
“Modified ECQ is still ECQ, pero meron lang mga piling industriya na pwedeng magbukas,” Presidential spokesperson Hary Roque said.
“Under modified ECQ, bubuksan natin unti unti ang ekonomiya,” he added. “Magkakaroon ng limited transportation services, suspendido pa rin ang klase sa lahat ng antas.”
Under the modified ECQ, authorities will allow limited movement for accessing essential services and work, reopening of select manufacturing and processing plants at 50 percent capacity, and limited reopening of transporting services. Face-to-face classes will remain suspended for areas under modified lockdown.
Roque added that the sectors that will be allowed to reopen during modified ECQ is still being finalized.
Department of Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, meanwhile, said that the decision on which areas will be placed under modified ECQ, general community quarantine and low risk areas was based on science, not politics.
“The decision was based on health. We looked at the LGU (local government unit) epidemic response framework, including case doubling time and critical care utilization rate,” Vergeir said in the same briefing.
“The DOH looked at the epidemic response of LGUs to determine if the areas is high, moderate or low risk,” she added. “Nagkaroon din ng other considerations such as capacity for isolation, security as well as social and economic concerns.”
Duterte first placed Metro Manila under ECQ on March 15, but this expanded the next day to cover all of Luzon until April 15. The Luzon-wide lockdown was further extended until April 30, and then another 15 days in Metro Manila and several ‘high-risk” provinces to give the government time to increase the country’s testing capacity.
The country has 11,086 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Monday – 7,123 of which are in Metro Manila. Laguna has a total of 382 cases, while Cebu City has 1,400.
The number of recoveries in the country has reached 1,999 while 726 have died of the disease./PN
