"Our enemy is not each other."
This was the reaction of one of OCTA Research's fellows after five members of the House of Representatives sought an investigation into OCTA's capabilities to analyze coronavirus disease (COVID-19) data.
"So this morning I woke up here in Germany to discover that OCTA is being investigated by the House of Representatives of my beloved homeland. So despite our differences, we must work together as one people to fight our common enemy. Our enemy is not each other. Our enemy is a virus that is threatening the lives and livelihoods of our kababayans (countrymen). It will take sacrifice and patience. This of course is something that I, as a priest, can say over and over again. But we can defeat this Delta variant," molecular biologist Fr. Nicanor Austriaco said during an online forum on Wednesday, Aug. 4.
Deputy Speakers Bernadette Herrera and Kristine Singson-Meehan, Deputy Minority Leader Stella Quimbo, AAMBIS-OWA Rep. Sharon Garin, and Quezon City 4th District Rep. Bong Suntay filed House Resolution No. 2075 on Tuesday, Aug. 3, seeking a House scrutiny of OCTA's "qualifications, research methodologies, partnerships, and composition."
Dr. Edsel Salvana, a member of the Department of Health-Technical Advisory Group, last Monday, Aug. 2, also criticized OCTA for "problematic" modeling mainly due to "incomplete and inconsistent" data.
Austriaco pointed out last Monday that OCTA has been able to predict every COVID-19 surge in the country.
"Our data says it all. We predicted every single surge. When the Department of Health basically denied the presence of a surge, we warned of a surge and we asked the government for an earlier lockdown early in March," he said in response to Salvana's statement.
'Countrywide Delta surge'
Austriaco called on all sectors to focus their efforts to address the further spread of the highly transmissible Delta COVID-19 variant, noting that the current surge in cases can be seen across the country.
"It is not just simply the NCR (National Capital Region), which has happened in the past. Usually NCR but now what we're seeing is that the Delta surge is throughout the country," he said during the forum.
"Vietnam has shown us that the approach that we are taking, where we are combining lockdowns with vaccinations can successfully reverse a Delta surge at the levels that we are already seeing here without allowing it to explode to the levels that we're seeing in other ASEAN countries," he explained.
Austriaco pointed out that millions of Filipinos are already fully vaccinated against COVID-19 while Vietnam only has 335,000 fully vaccinated individuals "but was able to reverse the Delta surge before it overwhelmed the country in the way that we're seeing in Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia."
He said Vietnam's success can be attributed to the "very strict" lockdowns of their urban centers.
"This is one success story from one of our neighbors that shows how an efficient and well-executed ECQ (enhanced community quarantine) in the urban areas of your country can reverse a Delta surge. We have to do the same to protect our people," he said.
OCTA has been pushing for a "circuit breaker lockdown" before the national government and the IATF decided to place Metro Manila under ECQ from Aug. 6 to 20.
Austriaco said one of the goals of the two-week ECQ now is to accelerate the vaccination rollout in the NCR to achieve population immunity.
"What we will do is we will uncouple the infection and hospitalizations and death. This has been seen in the United Kingdom so they have a Delta surge but they have been able to completely reopen their economy because they have uncoupled the infection and hospitalizations," he explained.
"COVID will be transformed from pandemic disease to an endemic one. We will simply learn to live with it. This is why this ECQ is different from the other ECQs. This is the first time that we are undertaking an ECQ that will allow us to uncouple COVID-19. This is our goal," he added.