Experts urge government: Keep MECQ in NCR

MANILA, Philippines — The OCTA Research Group urged the government yesterday not to lift the modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) in Metro Manila unless the low infection rate of COVID-19 is sustained for several weeks.

During a virtual forum organized by the Cardinal Santos Medical Center, OCTA fellow and molecular biologist Fr. Nicanor Austriaco said it would take careful planning to lower the current hospital utilization rate in the National Capital Region (NCR).

To decongest hospitals, he said the country must progressively lower the reproduction number, which indicates the number of people a positive individual can infect, to less than one for several weeks.

“Why several weeks? Because we have a 27-day confinement period for COVID-19 survivors. So if one patient goes in, if they survive, they will be in that bed for about one month. So you have to sustain the (reproduction number) below one for at least several weeks,” he said.

“This would take careful planning with the length of the MECQ and we urge the national government as one possible benchmark for changing
 quarantine levels is not to exit the MECQ until at least it is less than point nine in a sustained manner,” he added.

Citing data from the Department of Health (DOH), OCTA said the average reproduction number in the region from April 16 to 22 was 0.98, down from 1.17 in the preceding week. It reached over 2.0 before stricter quarantine measures were put in place last month.

While it is already below 1, OCTA fellow Guido David said it is still somewhat unstable, with some local government units (LGU) recording an increase despite the overall decrease in new cases in most cities.

“So you always have the possibility that as some of the LGUs recover, there will be an outbreak in one LGU that would spill over to the adjacent LGUs. We are looking for a consistent pattern of decrease throughout all the 17 LGUs for a significant period of time before we know we have successfully passed through the surge,” said Austriaco.

Among those that recorded an increase last week were Taguig with an average of 319 new cases per day (up four percent), Valenzuela with 187 (up five percent) and Marikina with 149 (up eight percent).

Austriaco also pointed out that increasing the number of COVID beds is not enough to solve the issue of decongestion, noting the significant shortage of nurses deployed in Metro Manila hospitals.

“If we keep increasing the number of COVID beds in the NCR, will we have enough nurses to ensure that our sick kababayans will receive the care that they should receive?” he asked.

“Our modeling suggests that we would need to find thousands of new nurses to maintain an adequate standard of care for our COVID patients in the NCR,” he said.

During the forum, OCTA also reiterated its recommendation for the national government – in partnership with the LGUs and the private sector – to intensify and expand testing, tracing and isolation strategies.

To address the new COVID-19 variants, it also recommended building bio-surveillance at the regional level.

“Local governments should continue to strictly monitor and enforce compliance with minimum health standards, such as physical distancing, the wearing of face masks and face shields and proper hygiene and discourage large gatherings in order to reverse the increase in transmissions at the community level,” it added.

“Government should also work together with the local government units and the private sector to accelerate the procurement and optimize the deployment of vaccines in the region and in the country,” it added.

Economic losses

Yesterday, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said economic losses owing to the two-week MECQ in the NCR and its adjoining provinces could run up to P120 billion.

“Based on an average improvement of around 30 percent in jobs and firms operating in MECQ, compared to ECQ, the rough estimate of GDP (gross domestic product) loss during MECQ can be around P120 billion,” Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said in a Viber message to reporters.

Earlier, he said economic losses were estimated at P180 billion due to the two-week imposition of the stricter ECQ in the NCR Plus bubble that includes the provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal.

In an interview with ANC, he said a survey conducted by the DTI showed 13 percent of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) were closed during MECQ.

While this is down from the 15 percent closed during ECQ, the figure is far from the four percent of MSMEs unable to operate when NCR Plus was under the more lenient general community quarantine (GCQ).

Shift to GCQ

Lopez remained hopeful that places under MECQ would shift to GCQ by May 1, when intensive care unit beds are increased and the rate of new COVID-19 cases declines.

“If we are able to commit that (better health care capacity and lesser infections) before the end of May, it’s possible we move to GCQ and have granular lockdowns,” he said.

At Thursday’s Laging Handa media briefing, Taguig City Mayor Lino Cayetano said the quarantine status in Metro Manila could be downgraded as soon as hospitals are decongested of COVID-19 patients.

“Hospitalization is still a problem, it’s still critical. But a lot of our residents need or want to go back to work,” Cayetano said in Filipino, expressing the shared sentiments of mayors in the region.

While lauding the government for building modular hospitals to address congestion in hospitals, he said the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) must carefully consider health care capacity before making decisions.

“I think the IATF will be guided by the decision to reopen (the economy) or to extend the (community quarantine) classification (by the situation in hospitals),” he added.

Lopez is aware that this problem should be solved first. “If we need more time for that and assuming cases are still up, of course, we can’t just go back to GCQ by May 1... If not, May 15,” said the DTI chief.

MMC recommendation

The Metro Manila Council (MMC), composed of all 17 mayors in the region, would be meeting tomorrow to discuss their recommendation for next month’s quarantine classification.

“This meeting would be the basis for our recommendation... it would be discussed thoroughly, because the data should be consolidated,” MMC chairman and Parañaque City Mayor Edwin Olivarez said in Filipino over dzMM radio yesterday.

He said a DOH representative will be joining their meeting as they discuss the COVID-19 situation in the region.

Talking about his city, Olivarez said: “Our number (of COVID-19 cases) here is getting better and our number of recoveries are also surging. Hopefully, this continues and our COVID-19 cases would drop.”

Relief for businesses

To assist businesses affected by the pandemic, Lopez said the DTI’s financing arm Small Business (SB) Corp. continues to make loans available through the COVID-19 Assistance to Restart Enterprises program at zero interest and without collateral.

Apart from the SB Corp., he said the Development Bank of the Philippines and Land Bank of the Philippines are also lending out to MSMEs through microfinancing institutions.

“Many companies, however, are requesting especially during ECQ, MECQ, for some relief on the payment,” Lopez said. “We would be appealing to BSP (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) and the banks to provide some grace period, especially this time in NCR Plus.”

He also said SMEs have complained of their business permit renewal fees being assessed based on sales in 2019 instead of 2020, and so the DTI would be writing to the Department of the Interior and Local Government to request LGUs to use last year’s sales in the assessment of fees.

To support businesses, particularly micro entrepreneurs, he said the DTI would want a P10-billion livelihood subsidy under the Bayanihan 3 which, when enacted into law, would provide assistance to households and workers affected by the pandemic.

Hotel restos reopen

Meanwhile, hotels in areas under lockdown are now authorized to reopen their restaurants, but still prohibited from accepting leisure bookings until the quarantine status is reverted to GCQ.

In its latest advisory, the Department of Tourism (DOT) allowed restaurants and cafes in quarantine hotels to serve packed meals to in-house guests, as well as take-outs and deliveries to the public.

In areas under ECQ and MECQ, food establishments in regular hotels may accommodate customers for outdoor dining at 50 percent capacity.

However, support services, including bars, gyms and spas, are directed to remain shut for both quarantine and regular hotels in ECQ locations. They may only open their facilities if the hotel is situated in areas under GCQ and MGCQ.

The DOT left the decision on reopening of restaurants in isolation hotels to the DOH.

Tourism stakeholders, on the other hand, are encouraged to apply for a safety seal certification that could boost their transactions with travelers in the “new normal.”

Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat urged tourism enterprises to participate in the certification program geared toward improving compliance with minimum health standards and intensifying contact tracing efforts.

“More importantly, safety-conscious travelers will always be drawn to products that are certified safe by government bodies,” Puyat said.

Puyat said the DOT will launch a site where firms can check the requirements for getting a safety seal.

The safety seal certification was signed by the DTI, DOT, DOH, departments of Labor and Employment and of the Interior and Local Government.

Establishments that were awarded the government stamp must also use the StaySafe app for contact tracing. – Louella Desiderio, Ralph Edwin Villanueva, Ghio Ong, Elijah Rosales