Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez is proposing a policy when only vaccinated individuals will be allowed to move around during a strict lockdown.
Lopez told Konsyumer atbp on Saturday this could be looked at as future policy when the country shall have achieved herd immunity or more people shall have been vaccinated.
“We should be ready with that kind of protocol,” Lopez added.
Lopez said countries with high vaccination rates have adopted a similar policy.
“This would revive parts of the economy during lockdowns. We allow a lot of sectors to operate during general community quarantine (GCQ) and modified GCQ where both vaccinated and unvaccinated can move around. But during ECQ (enhanced community quarantine) or MECQ (modified EQ), we can go into a protocol in the future where only the vaccinated can go to stores or restaurants,” Lopez added.
This future policy would encourage more Filipinos to get the vaccine.
“Those who have yet to get the vaccine will stay home so they won’t get infected. It’s for their own protection,” Lopez said.
Meantime, Lopez is hopeful the number of new coronavirus disease 2019 cases, especially that of the Delta variant, will go down during the two-week ECQ in the National Capital Region until August 20 so the area could shift to MECQ.
“We have recommended to shift to MECQ if the threat of the surge of the Delta variant goes down so we can just implement granular lockdowns in barangays or communities.
That way, a big part of the economy can move,” he added.
Lopez also said the Inter-agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases have not discussed a possible extension of the ECQ in NCR.
