THE granular lockdown in Metro Manila which was approved by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) will have four alert levels, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año yesterday said.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the implementation of the IATF-approved granular lockdown has yet to be approved by President Duterte.
Roque said the President is set to meet with members of the IATF tonight to discuss the next quarantine classification for the National Capital Region (NCR), which is under modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) until September 7.
“New quarantine responses (are) still for approval of PRRD (President Duterte),” Roque said in a message to media.
Año said the strictest granular lockdown will be Alert Level 4, where only healthcare workers will be allowed to go out of their residences.
“All activities will be stopped (under Alert Level 4), Only health workers are allowed to go out. All the rest will not be allowed to go out, there will be no APORs (Authorized Persons Outside of Residence). If there are establishments in the street or block (under Alert Level 4 granular lockdown), their operation will be stopped,” Año said.
APORs include healthcare workers, workers of permitted industries and representatives of households accessing essential goods like food and medicine. Special APORs include persons seeking medical attention and those due for vaccination.
Under the current setup, APORs are allowed to go out even during the strictest ECQ.
Año said that under Alert Level 3 of the granular lockdown, 30 percent of residents in affected areas will be allowed to go out, while 50 percent will be allowed under Alert Level 2. He did not say the percentage of the population that will be allowed to go out under Alert Level 1.
“You are going to treat an area based on the extent of infection or transmission. We have parameters for that. At present, we have no level, 1, 2, 3 and 4. We will be having a particular response in every alert levels,” he said.
Año said the policy shift to granular lockdown in NCR will be implemented on Wednesday.
“Our target for the pilot testing is until September 30,” he said, adding that if found effective, the scheme will be considered for implementation nationwide.
It was Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez who said on Saturday that the IATF has approved the pilot implementation of the granular lockdown in the National Capital Region (NCR) starting September 8.
The granular lockdown, according to Lopez, willl be implemmented in areas identified as hot spots or with high number of cases of COVID-19 cases.
Lopez said the guidelines for the granular lockdown are still being fine-tuned.
Meanwhile in Antipolo, the city government on Saturday placed under a 14-day granular lockdown a compound in Oliveros street in Barangay Cupang after six residents tested positive for COVID-19.
Mayor Andeng Ynares said 15 homes and over 70 residents are affected by the lockdown.
VIOLATORS
The PNP yesterday reported over 195,000 individuals were caught for various violations during the enforcement of the MECQ in Metro Manila from August 21 to September 4.
In a radio interview yesterday, PNP chief Gen. Guillermo Eleazar said the number means that the daily average of violators who were accosted by the police during the MECQ in the region was around 13,000, which is higher by 3,000 compared to the daily average of violators caught during the 15-day lockdown of the NCR from August 6 until 20.
“This is because more are allowed to go out,” said Eleazar, explaining the higher number of violators apprehended during the MECQ compared to the ECQ.
ECQ is the strictest community quarantine imposed by authorities. Under the MECQ, the second highest community quarantine, more workers are allowed to report to work as more industries are permitted to operate.
Data from the PNP national headquarters in Camp Crame said a total of 195,518 were caught during the MECQ in NCR, of which 130,984 were for violation of minimum public health standards; 53,149 for curfew violation and 11,385 non-APORs who were not allowed to leave their homes.
The PNP said 118,483 of the MECQ violators (60.6 percent) in NCR were merely warned and subsequently sent home; 66,831 (34.18 percent) were fined; while 10.204 (5.22 percent) were brought to police stations for filing of charges.
Nationwide, there were 941,583 violators who were caught during the MECQ also from August 21 to September 4 —- 724,967 for minimum health public standards; 158,763 for curfew; and 57,853 non-APORs.
Of the MECQ violators nationwide, 754,892 (80.17 percent) were warned and sent home; 132,331 (14.05 percent) were fined; and 54,360 (5.77 percent) were brought to police stations and charged. — With Jocelyn Montemayor and Christian Oineza
