The positivity rate of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infection in Navotas City has decreased following the reimposition of modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) in Metro Manila, Mayor Toby Tiangco said on Monday (Aug. 17).
In the first few days of lockdown, Tiangco said the positive rate of the disease in his city was at 37 percent. But a week after the MECQ was imposed on August 4, it decreased by more than half to 15 percent.
"Mas bumaba po ang aming positivity rate (Our positivity rate went down)," Tiangco said in an interview over DZBB radio Monday, agreeing that the lockdown has become "effective."
This was the reason Tiangco, in a Metro Manila council on Sunday evening, pushed to extend the MECQ status of the National Capital Region (NCR), he said.
"Gusto pa namin babaan... para sana magawa namin below 10 percent, diba? Pero ang majority kagabi is GCQ (general community quarantine) (We wanted to lower it further, up to 10 percent , but the majority voted for GCQ)," he said.
"Ang point ko naman diyan... 'pag masyado maaga, hahabulin ng COVID 'yung ekonomiya. Kaya tayo napilitan bumalik (My point was that if MECQ is lifted too early, the COVID-19 infection will chase after the economy, which will then be a reason that we have to return to MECQ again)," he added.
Tiangco, however, said that whatever recommendations they made, it will still be up to President Duterte to decide on the quarantine status of NCR.