By IRMA ISIP and ANGELA CELIS
While the government is easing the quarantine level in the National Capital Region (NCR) and adjacent provinces from enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) to modified ECQ (MECQ) starting today, economic managers believe the current health crisis must be managed effectively to avoid making the painful decision of resorting to even stricter quarantine levels in the future.
“The IATF (Inter-agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases) recommended to the President to shift to MECQ after two weeks of ECQ, to restore more jobs and livelihood for the people,” said Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez in a text message to reporters.
“But this comes with the continuing priority to increase the healthcare capacity,” Lopez said, citing the need to add more intensive care unit rooms and isolation units, and to enhance contact tracing capabilities to lower the number of new cases per day.
Lopez added communities, public places and workplaces are required to comply with the minimum health protocols: strict adherence to health protocols, wearing of masks and face shields, frequent handwashing, proper ventilation as well as avoiding non-essential gatherings.
He said there will be more teams to be fielded to monitor compliance in different places.
Lopez said the government will follow the April 3, 2021 omnibus guidelines approved by the IATF on which business activities will be permitted and sectors will be allowed to reopen.
He said this is without prejudice to the authority of the Department of Trade and Industry to issue a negative list, albeit a shorter one.
Unless revised, the following will remain closed under MECQ: entertainment venues with live performers such as karaoke bars, bars, clubs, concert halls, theaters, and cinemas;
Recreational venues such as internet cafes, billiard halls, amusement arcades, bowling alleys, and similar venues; amusement parks or theme parks, fairs/peryas, kid amusement industries such as playgrounds, playrooms and kiddie rides;
Outdoor sports courts or venues for contract sports, scrimmages, games, or activities;
indoor sports courts or venues, fitness studios gyms, spas or other indoor leisure centers or facilities and swimming pools;
Casinos, horse racing, cockfighting and operation of cockpits, lottery and betting shops, and other gaming establishments except for the draws conducted by the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office;
Indoor visitor or tourist attractions, libraries, archives, museums, galleries, and cultural shows and exhibits; outdoor tourist attractions; venues for meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions;
Personal care services which include beauty salons, beauty parlors, medical aesthetic clinics, cosmetic or derma clinics, make-up salons, nail spas, reflexology, aesthetics, wellness and holistic centers, and other similar establishments; acupuncture and electrocautery establishments, and massage therapy including sports therapy establishments. It also includes establishments providing tanning services, body piercings, tattooing and similar services. Home services for these activities likewise not permitted; and;
Indoor dine-in services of food preparation establishments such as commissaries, restaurants, and eateries.
According to Lopez, outdoor dining will be allowed under MECQ at 50 percent capacity, with diagonal seating or acrylic dividers.
Even as NCR Plus shifts to MECQ, the reopening will be calibrated and minimum public health standards shall be complied with at all times for the duration of the MECQ.
All establishments, persons, or activities permitted to operate, work, or be undertaken during ECQ shall be allowed to operate at full on-site capacity. These are industries providing essential goods and services like public markets, groceries as well as banks.
All establishments, persons, or activities not permitted to operate, work, or be undertaken during ECQ shall be allowed to operate at 50 percent of on-site capacity, while encouraging work-from-home and other flexible work arrangements, where applicable.
In mid-March, Karl Kendrick Chua, acting National Economic and Development Authority secretary, presented a cost-benefit analysis of a two-week MECQ or its equivalent, which showed that there would be an income loss of P2.1 billion in the National Capital Region and adjacent areas for each day of MECQ.
The unemployed people, which was estimated at 506,000 under a general community quarantine, would increase by 128,500, for a total of 634,500 under MECQ.
However, Chua’s analysis also showed that a two-week MECQ could prevent up to 266,194 new COVID-19 cases and up to 4,738 deaths due to COVID-19.
Meanwhile, the DOF said in its economic bulletin that while the Philippines has not yet reached the extent of infection spread as in Europe and the Americas, it should not get to those levels that would call for drastic measure, as what happened last year.
“It is important the health risks posed by the epidemic be managed effectively, either by pharmaceutical or non-pharmaceutical interventions, and with the conscientious participation of all. Otherwise, government will be forced to take the difficult and painful decision of imposing much stricter quarantines measures,” the DOF said.
“In this instance, in the process of attempting to stem the spread of the disease the risk of inadvertently killing the proverbial patient increases. Such potential unpleasant double-effect situation should be avoided,” it added.
The DOF released this statement before Malacanang declared yesterday that Metro Manila, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal, also known as NCR Plus, will be placed under modified enhanced community quarantine, after two weeks of being under the enhanced community quarantine level due to the recent surge in daily coronavirus disease 2019 cases.
