Villar. . .

I am glad that Interior Secretary Eduardo Año is taking a no-nonsense approach in dealing with selective lockdowns to effectively flatten the curve in the capital region.

Mr. Año, vice chairman of the National Task Force for Covid-19, proposed the measure in his meeting last week with Metro Manila mayors, officials of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority and some members of Inter-agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, as part of government’s response to limit the spread of disease while gradually reopening the economy.

I have favored selective lockdowns compared with the restrictive ECQ that limited mobility to a minimum and virtually put the economy

on a standstill. Mr. Año’s tactic of placing one barangay or street on an immediate lockdown and subject its residents to testing even if there is only a single Covid-19 case is an ideal model. Contact tracing here will be handy once the infected individual is placed in isolation.

“What we want now is a faster implementation of localized lockdowns, whether it is a community, neighborhood, a street or a building or one household or one barangay,” he said. “So that we will be able to eventually reopen jobs and offices and our countrymen will be able to return to work, we need to act fast.”

I fully agree with Mr. Año. We can both contain Covid-19 and further reopen the economy at the same time with swift and practical solutions.