The Duterte government’s coronavirus task force will tackle the possibility of implementing stricter quarantine measures if coronavirus cases continued to increase amid a record-breaking surge in the Philippines, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said on Monday, March 15.

Duque made the statement in an interview on CNN Philippines’ The Source, saying the government – through local officials – was first trying to stem the spread of infections through implementing strict localized lockdowns and other granular response measures. 

“The strict quarantine measures are now in place, but only more localized, more granular. We’ll see what happens in the next few days. If there is going to be a continuing increase, then that should be one of the possible recommendations that the IATF will first discuss before recommending to the President,” Duque said. 

“We will have discussions on this, that’s for sure,” he added. 

Duque, however, did not mention what the scope of possible stricter quarantine measures would be.

Why this matters

A year since the Duterte government implemented a lockdown in Metro Manila, the center of the country’s outbreak, the Philippines is once again seeing a record number of new daily infections.

Unlike the last peak in cases seen in July to August 2020, experts studying the pandemic said the recent spike in cases seen in Metro Manila had been especially concerning as infections were spreading quicker, prompting fears of a more threatening surge in cases. If not managed properly, experts warned that about 8,000 new daily cases may be seen nationwide. 

On Monday, the Department of Health had logged 5,404 COVID-19 cases – the fourth biggest single-day tally in the country since the pandemic began.

‘GCQ in name only’

On Monday, Duque said the presence of variants could not solely account for the surge in the country. The health secretary said while he was “not discounting the possibility” that variants were contributing to the increase in cases, data from the Philippine Genome Center showed the dominant COVID-19 variant in the country was still that of the Hong Kong-lineage B1163 variant. 

Since the last peak in cases observed in 2020, the Philippines has reported the presence of more infectious variants first found in the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Brazil.

On Saturday, March 13, the Philippines also reported detecting a variant of the virus that contained mutations found in other variants of concern, though health officials said it was still too early to tell if the variant detected in the country, named P3, was already a cause for alarm.

Duque said the surge was the result of a combination of factors, including “quarantine fatigue,” failure in complying to public health standards, and the “loosening  up of many quarantine restrictions.”

Duque noted that the increased mobility of people, in particular, was a factor that had driven the current surge in cases over the past few weeks. He added that Metro Manila’s general community quarantine (GCQ) had been such only “in name” rather than in practice, as many quarantine restrictions in the metro had beed eased. 

“The increased mobility, loosening up of restrictions, the GCQ we have – many of the measures or restrictions have been loosened up, parang nasa MGCQ (like we are under a modified GCQ already) – the GCQ lang in name (GCQ in name only), but if you look, (there is) loosening up in bars and salons, meetings, conferences,” he said.

Duque, however, tempered his statement by saying that a balance between keeping the economy open and ensuring the health system was protected “shouldn’t be mutually exclusive.”

“They should be done both ways – that opening up of the economy safely,” he added. 

On Monday, Malacañang itself had dismissed criticisms that the Duterte government’s push to reopen the economy triggered the record-high surge in COVID-19 cases in the country.

“Excellent naman talaga tayo sa handling, until this month of March kung saan sumipa ang mga kaso ng COVID–19,” Roque said. (We were really excellent in handling the pandemic until this month of March, when COVID-19 cases began rising.)

Intensified response

Duque said health officials were “alarmed” by the increase in cases, and that they’ve reminded local officials and the public of the importance of following health protocols such as proper wearing of face masks, face shields, and observing physical distancing at the very least. 

“There are no shortcuts here. We really need to follow [these],” Duque said, calling the minimum public health standards the “strongest protection we can have against this surge.”

He added that after a year of implementing pandemic response measures, local governments have “already mastered” how to address the spread of COVID-19, and that it was now “a matter of intensifying this again and being more deliberate.”

Duque said it would take about two to four weeks to start seeing the impact of localized measures such as strict granular lockdowns, the imposition of curfew hours, and the closing of some non-essential establishments on the transmission of COVID-19 in the country. – Rappler.com