IATF exercises caution in keeping Alert Level 3 classification for NCR
Published Oct 31, 2021 12:12 am
The latest data were sufficiently encouraging. Metro Manila is now classified as low risk, having recorded only 953 cases per day on a seven-day average from Oct. 20 to 26. The COVID reproduction rate stands at 0.52 percent, while the incidence rate is at 6.73 percent per 100,000. These positive indicators would have prodded the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases to issue a new Alert Level 2 classification for the capital region.
Yet another plus factor for easing restraints is that 8.3 million or more than 85 percent of the target population in Metro Manila has been fully vaccinated; up to 95 percent have received at least one vaccine dose.
Despite these positive indicators, IATF decided to exercise an abundance of caution --- and maintained for another two weeks until November 15, the Alert Level 3 classification for the capital region. It also increased the number of pilot areas for using the new alert level system (ALS). Covered in the ALS pilot expansion for the period of Nov. 1 to 14 are Regions 3, 6, and 10, and Baguio City as an area for special monitoring.
The Healthcare Professionals Alliance Against COVID-19 observed that despite the apparent decline in COVID-19 cases to an average of 3,000 per day, “this level is still high to fuel a surge.” Citing some countries that are seeing an uptrend in cases, they cautioned: “The global trend in COVID cases is on the rise again. Some countries are already bracing for the fourth wave. It’s just a matter of time before this is felt in the Philippines,”
Before the latest IATF decision was announced, Economic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua said that the lowering to Alert Level 2 could increase gross domestic product (GDP) by P3.6 billion and employment by 16,000 per week. This could also boost overall economic growth for 2021 that, as predicted by the International Monetary Fund, would reach only 3.2 percent, or significantly lower than the previous forecast of 5.4 percent.
Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Jose Concepcion III continues to campaign for the further downgrading of the NCR’s alert level status in order to hasten the safe reopening of the economy. Representatives and owners of restaurants, hotels, amusement parks, salons, spas and gyms have been urging a further liberalization of health and safety protocols that would enable them to re-employ thousands who have been displaced from their jobs.
Last June, major export earners like semiconductor and electronic firms were also eager to ramp up operations in order to rejuvenate the business sector’s campaign to create one million jobs that was launched in mid-year --- only to be derailed by the upsurge in new infections due to the highly contagious Delta variant.
Since March 2020, the government’s response to the global pandemic has been characterized by a series of fortnightly quarantine regimes, now modified to an alert level system. Exposure to the experience of other countries that are apparently coping with the pandemic --- while enabling their citizens to regain a modicum of normalcy --- raises the Filipino people’s expectations of better days ahead.