Government defends looser approach vs. record COVID-19 cases
MANILA, Philippines —The Duterte administration went on the defensive on Tuesday and said that the decision to reopen the economy is not to blame for the current surge in COVID-19 cases.
“I do not think it is the main reason or the reason why the cases went up in March,” Acting Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua said in a briefing.
Instead, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque, he himself was infected with COVID-19, said more infectious variants now widely spread in the capital region are the main culprits for record COVID-19 cases in three of the past 4 days. These variants started entering in January when the government rejected calls for border controls.
“We are data-driven. We are science-driven,” Roque said in the same briefing.
Chua and Roque’s tandem tried to justify the government’s strategy on allowing most of Mega Manila to operate while keeping them, and COVID-19, contained in those areas through checkpoints. Chua said it was a necessary “balancing act” to protect livelihoods and avoid job losses that over the past year triggered massive hunger.
The approach seemed sensible, at least based on the National Economic and Development Authority’s assessment. Under this, a return to tighter modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) would have saved an estimated 266,194 COVID-19 cases from materializing but result into 58,000 more Metro Manila residents going hungry.
A total of 4,738 new coronavirus deaths would have been prevented as well, but 128,500 more people would have gone jobless on top of the 4 million people nationwide found unemployed as of January. Income losses would have also increased to P2.1 billion a day.
An MECQ or a tighter version of that would have also prevented 11,626 COVID-19 cases from turning severe or critical, but deaths from other diseases would have also spiked to 78,599.
These estimated figures, Chua said, that led the pandemic task force to calibrate their response— one that involved managing COVID-19, while ensuring that most people get to do their jobs unhampered. “We also have much higher deaths due to non-Covid because many can’t afford treatment…We also have to look after their welfare,” he said.
Without jobs during a lockdown, observers said government can always provide cash assistance. But Roque said that while "government can always find a money..., ayuda (assistance) will always not be enough." "It's only a stop-gap measure," Roque said. Chua has rejected another P400-billion stimulus measure pending at the Lower House meant for this purpose, saying some funds from previous Bayanihan laws are yet to be distributed.
But whether or not a more controlled approach to fresh infections would work remain to be seen. Roque himself refused to answer whether the more stringent general community quarantine in Mega Manila can be extended, without essentially ruling it out. “Let’s see first what will happen,” he said.
The surge has inevitably overshadowed issues on vaccination which is unfolding slowly than initially anticipated because Philippine procurement was terribly snail-paced than other countries. So far, 1.12 million vaccines had been deployed, representing 98% of the donated vaccines currently used. Yet only 24.06% of around 1 million health workers have received at least one shot.
Carlito Galvez, vaccine czar, maintained that come second quarter mass vaccination would proceed as planned, while the goal to immunize 70 million people by yearend remains.
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