JTF to stakeholders: Enforce health standards

MANILA, Philippines — Establishments and event organizers should be the ones implementing health protocols on visitors to prevent the spread of COVID-19 this holiday season, the quarantine enforcement arm of the government’s coronavirus task force said yesterday.

Lt. Gen. Cesar Binag, commander of the Joint Task Force COVID Shield, said that while local governments and police have their roles in implementing and enforcing quarantine rules, stakeholders from the private sector should also do their part.

“Guidelines state that establishment owners and organizers of activities should be the ones implementing minimum health standards,” he said in a radio interview, adding that such stakeholders should continuously remind visitors of protocols.

“Local governments have been given authority to enforce rules and police are tasked to remind violators of protocols but, from the start, establishment owners or activity organizers should have been implementing these in the first place,” he added.

Binag said while the JTF had not yet seen any major incidents during the conduct of the nine-day Simbang Gabi, he noted that there were still issues in implementing social distancing outside the churches, which serves as an overflow area for people who cannot be accommodated inside due to capacity limits.

To make up for this, Binag said churches have been asked to increase the number of their marshals and police deployment had also been doubled, not only in churches but also in other places prone to crowding this holiday season.

“But if citizens wouldn’t do their part, enforcement would be difficult,” he stressed.

A portion of the additional police officers were tasked to assess compliance of people, which would then be submitted to the Philippine National Police and the Department of the Interior and Local Government.

The Department of Health (DOH) and several scientists earlier warned against a surge of COVID-19 cases during and after the holiday season due to gatherings that were enabled by eased restrictions this season.

This was the reason why several local governments, like Taguig City, were mulling “new lockdown and quarantine restrictions.”

However, the JTF maintained that reports circulating about reverting Metro Manila to modified enhanced community quarantine were not true.

As of yesterday, the DOH reported 1,754 more cases, bringing the total to 459,789. It also reported 36 deaths, which brought total fatalities from COVID-19 to 8,947 or about 1.95 percent of all the cases.

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire also defended the imposition of lockdowns this year, saying these were the appropriate responses that save the lives of many people.

“We don’t agree that the year was wasted because of COVID-19 and the lockdown,” Vergeire said in a virtual briefing last week. “Many lives were saved because of community restrictions. If we didn’t do that, we would have had more deaths in the country. We might have had the health system overwhelmed.” – Mayen Jaymalin