Lorenzana belies Metro Manila’s return to MECQ

Metro Manila will not revert back to the stricter modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) yet despite the increasing number of COVID-19 infections this Christmas season, National Action Plan (NAP) Chairman Delfin Lorenzana said Saturday night.

He said speculations that Metro Manila would return to MECQ starting on the evening of December 19 is a false information that has already reached the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) and the National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19.

“This is not true. As the President had earlier announced, Metro Manila shall remain under general community quarantine (GCQ) until the end of the year. Neither the IATF nor the mayors of Metro Manila recommended any shi in the quarantine status in this period,” Lorenzana said.

Lorenzana said the current situation in Metro Manila “is stable and manageable and does not warrant a shi back to MECQ.”

Concerns were raised that the government would impose stricter quarantine measures a er health experts monitored an up tick of new COVID-19 cases in Metro Manila.

According to the University of the Philippines' (UP) OCTA Research, the COVID-19 reproduction rate in Metro Manila spiked to 1.09 as of December 17.

It was a noticeable jump from the 0.90 reproduction rate on December 1 which means that the virus “is spreading very fast.”

It was also the first time that the reproduction rate went above the recommended level, which is 1, since August.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is advising countries to try and maintain the COVID-19 reproduction rate at 1 or lower to prevent the healthcare system from being overwhelmed.

But National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19 chief implementer Carlito Galvez Jr. said the public should not be al armed by the “slight increase” in the number of COVID-19 cases.

“Hu wag mu nat a yong ma alarm a dahil ginagawa ng mga mayors ang ka ni lang mg ag in ag aw a. An gM MD A [Metropolitan Manila Development Authority] at mayors ay halos hindi na natutulog para i-supervise at i-implement ang minimum health standards,” he said.

Data from the Department of Health (DoH) showed that 445 new infections were recorded in Metro Manila on Saturday, which brought the total cases to 205,654.

Of these, 8,488 cases are “active” or those still recovering; 193,406 have recovered; and 3,760 died.