Leachon urges public: Be on ‘voluntary ECQ’

Former National Task Force for COVID-19 adviser Dr. Tony Leachon on Monday urged the public to conduct voluntary enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in support of the health workers’ pleas.

“Voluntary ECQ mindset so that we will not increase the viral transmission as well as be a problem and be a burden to the hospitals right now who are overwhelmed in the hospital setting,” he said.

Leachon said the public should be as cautious as most were in the earlier months of the pandemic to avoid having more patients within the hospitals.

“The call of doctors right now is to adopt our move back in March where we were very cautious when cases were still low, even more now that cases are higher,” he said.

The public should be as cautious as most were in the earlier months of the pandemic to avoid having more patients within the hospitals.

He said that Catholic communities have also aired their support through temporarily postponing any religious gatherings for two weeks.

The public was likewise advised to implement maximum health standards such as staying at home and to ensure the wearing of face shields to decrease the rate of transmission as cases have breached the 100,000-mark.

“We need to limit the viral transmission by less gathering by less movement and wearing the mask and hand washing and the face shield,” he said.

Breather

On Sunday night, President Rodrigo

Duterte placed Metro Manila, Bulacan, Rizal, and Cavite under the modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) as an answer to the plea of health workers for a two-week “breather.”

However, Leachon said that this will only decline the cases by around 20,000 from the expected projection of experts from the University of the Philippines (UP) at 150,000 supposedly by the end of August.

“At 5,000 cases, the run rate will be lower. I expect that the cases will be 130,000 by the end of the month,” he said.

He also advised most sectors to only use the gold standard of testing through RT-PCR instead of the rapid-antibody tests as the false results only add to the number of cases.

At present, the Philippines ranked at the 25th spot worldwide among countries with the most number of cases surpassing China — the world’s epicenter of the virus as shown in the data from Johns Hopkins University.

Fate of LSI unknown

The reimposition of a stricter lockdown in Mega Manila is expected to affect the government’s program to transport locally stranded individuals (LSI) back to their provinces.

During the hearing of the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability as to the efforts of the government to address the plight of LSI, Presidential Management Staff and Hatid Tulong Program Lead Convenor Joseph Encabo answered in the affirmative when asked if the decision to place Metro Manila, Cavite, Rizal, Laguna and Bulacan will affect the Hatid Tulong Program.

“Definitely Mr. Chairman it will,” he said.

According to Encabo, an “overwhelming number” of LSI or about 5,000, excluding the number of individuals who asked the technical working group on Hatid Tulong project for assistance through text messages have yet to be accommodated.

Encabo said they cannot assure that these LSI are home by August also due to weather constraints.