Metro Manila placed under strictest quarantine
MANILA: The government on Friday appeared to have yielded to strong pressure by imposing the strictest of the four lockdowns, called enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), to help contain the spread of the deadly and highly infectious Delta variant of the COVID-19 pandemic, a Malacanang Palace official reported.
Harry Roque, the presidential spokesman, said President Rodrigo Duterte approved the “painful” decision following “hours” of debate at the Palace among members of the Inter-agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.
“This is a painful decision because we know ECQ is difficult,” Roque told a televised briefing.
“But we need to do this to avoid shortage of our ICU (intensive care unit) beds and other hospital requirements if cases balloon because of the Delta variant. In the end what everyone put in mind was we needed to come up with a difficult situation that we would save lives.”
He said the ECQ would take effect from Aug 6 to 20 in Metro Manila, known officially as the National Capital Region (NCR). Earlier, the government imposed the more relaxed general community quarantine (GCQ) “with heightened restrictions on the “megalopolis” from July 30 to Aug.5.
At the same time, Roque said Duterte ordered the budget department to “source funds” needed to provide financial assistance ( known locally as “ayuda”) to help the residents affected by the lockown in Metro Manila and its 13 million population as well as those from four neighboring provinces - Cavite, Laguna and Rizal in Southern Luzon and Bulacan in Central Luzon.
The government also extended its travel ban on arriving passengers from 10 countries from Aug.1 to 15, Roque said.
The countries covered under the ban are India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam. Officials explained that ECQ means only essential establishments and industries will be allowed to operate. Hospitals, grocery stores, delivery services, certain manufacturing firms business process outsourcing will also remain fully operational.