The Healthcare Professionals Alliance against COVID-19 (HPAAC) has called on the government to urgently address the critical bottlenecks that directly impact the surge in cases.
In a statement, HPAAC said it is alarmed that critical bottlenecks to long-term solutions have not been addressed, and necessary changes to systems and processes have yet to be implemented.
"We have reached out to various authorities to highlight these critical bottlenecks that directly impact the surge," the group said.
"We have outlined proposals - the same ones we have called for since August 2020 - that will allow the safe reopening of the economy. These bottlenecks have yet to be acknowledged with the same sense of urgency currently experienced by our colleagues in every congested emergency department," added HPAAC.
The group lamented how the government still has "no clear plans and efforts to fix the root causes, and the nation continues to suffer because of this."
"We re-emphasize that this mobility restriction is but a short-term intervention, and yet it seems to have been wasted again," the group said.
HPAAC said the enhanced community quarantine may have slowed down the spread, but the numbers are still perilously high.
The group then made the following demands:
-Establish an Incident Management Team for command and control for the whole NCR.
-Pass an enabling law that will compel data sharing through an integrated ICT infrastructure.
-Adopt APAT Dapat and emphasize stronger messaging on ventilation measures.
-Recalibrate the program in order to ramp up and achieve set targets without compromises in safety caused by inadvertent queues and crowding in vaccination areas.
-Allocate adequate investment in social safety nets and support to populations at risk.
"Should these demands continue to be ignored, we will remain in this vicious cycle. The sick will die unattended, the people will continue to face hunger, and our economy will plummet into further recession," said HPAAC.