All quiet here

A woman crossing a usually busy street during a community quarantine to help curb the spread of the coronavirus in Manila, Philippines. Despite stringent measures being enforced nationwide, the government says the fight to curb the outbreak is ‘far from over’.

despITe the many stringent measures being enforced to prevent the further spread of Covid-19, the country’s fight against the contagion is “far from over”.

Cabinet secretary Karlo nograles – spokesman for the Inter-agency Task Force for the Management of emerging Infectious diseases – said this in a virtual press briefing yesterday as the World Health organization stressed that the philippine government must consider the “epidemiological situation” should it decide to lift the Luzon lockdown, which is scheduled to end at midnight on april 13.

nograles said as long as health authorities had yet to develop a vaccine, measures against Covid-19 would still be in place and would become part of the “new normal” even after the situation de-escalated.

about half of the country’s population were ordered to stay home, mass gatherings were banned and public transportation systems were suspended after president Rodrigo duterte placed the entire island of Luzon under an enhanced community quarantine, effectively a lockdown, beginning March 16.

The lockdown is the government’s response to health experts’ estimate that Covid-19 infection may reach 75,000 in the philippines in the next three months if the virus is not contained. — philippine daily Inquirer/ann