THE Department of Health (DOH) yesterday reminded families that staying at home does not mean neglecting safety protocols as it stressed that minimum health standards versus the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) must still be practiced at home.
“We remind the people that even if you stay at home, you still have to do the different things that have to be done as preventive measures,” said health undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire in virtual press briefing.
“We have asked people to stay at home but it doesn’t mean they won’t practice the safety measures at home,” she added.
More importantly, Vergeire said family members who constantly go out must exert additional hygiene practices to insulate their homes from the virus.
“When you go out, you must do everything so that you don’t bring home the infection,” she said, adding that “f only people can do that, infections at home will not happen.”
The DOH issued the reminder following a study from South Korea showing that household transmission of COVID-19 was plausible because of close interactions among family members.
To stop local contamination and household transmission, the Philippine government now discourages the practice of home quarantine for persons infected with the coronavirus.
Family members who caught the mild variety of the virus are encouraged to volunteer for isolation in government facilities, while critical patients have to be confined in hospitals.
The DOH reminder also comes amid the slight increase in the reproduction rate (R0 or R naught) of COVID-19 in the country.
From only 1.23 of last week, the R0 of COVID-19 in the country is now at 1.58.
“If our reproduction number is 1.58, it means that with each positive case, it can infect one to two other people,” said Vergeire.
“R naught” represents the number of new infections estimated to stem from a single case.
When the outbreak started, the R naught in the country was at 3 to 4.
Experts said the ideal R naught should be below 1.
Vergeire said the increased R naught was expected following the easing of community quarantine measures since June.
“Once the quarantine restrictions were eased, because many people already went out, the chances of infection naturally becomes higher. We already expected this when we decided to reopen the economy,” Vergeire said.
