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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider Duterte may announce next quarantine status on April 28

Duterte may announce next quarantine status on April 28

Published Apr 26, 2021 02:29 pm

President Duterte may announce the new quarantine classification for the month of May on Wednesday, April 28 as his weekly public address was also moved to the said date, Malacañang said.

President Duterte (File Photo)

Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque made the announcement a few days before the existing quarantine classifications against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) expire on April 30.

In his press briefing on Monday, Roque said President Duterte may make the announcement on Wednesday after the Inter-agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases meets on Tuesday, April 27.

"Bukas po at bagama't magkakaroon pa ng apela 'yan, tingin ko ibibigay na ang rekomendasyon kay Presidente kasi magiging a-uno na ng Mayo (The meeting will take place tomorrow and even though there will still be appeals, I think we will make the recommendation to the President already since May 1 is fast approaching)," he said.

"Ang 'Talk to the People' nga ay Wednesday. Pwede nang si Presidente ang mag-anunsyo (The 'Talk to the People' will take place on Wednesday so the President can announce the new classifications by then)," he added.

According to Roque, the IATF will look at the two-week attack rate, daily attack rate, and healthcare utilization rate in making its recommendation to President Duterte.

The Palace official said that the government's prevention, detection, isolation, treatment, and reintegration (PDITR) strategy worked since the rate of infection dropped to .91 on April 21 after staying at above 1.0 over the past few weeks.

However, he said this was not enough to downgrade the National Capital Region-plus (NCR-plus) bubble area from the modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) to the general community quarantine (GCQ).

"Meron tayong mga assessment na dapat gawin at itong mga assessment na ito ay kinakailangang magbigay ng kasagutan ng mga lokal na pamahalaan para masiguro naman na hindi rin masayang yung ating halos isang buwan na lockdown (We have certain assessments to make and these should be answered by the local government units to ensure that the month-long lockdown won't go to waste)," Roque said.

Roque, meanwhile, stressed that the government is looking at the overall health of the public and not just the factors related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Total health po ang dapat tignan (What we should be looking at is the total health)," he said.

"Tignan po natin ilan yung nagkakasakit, ilan ang namamatay sa COVID, ilan ang nagugutom, ilan ang nagkakasakit, at ilan ang namamatay sa iba pang kadahilanan o dahil kaya dahil doon sa dagdag na pahirap na nagbubunga doon sa lockdown (We should look at the number of people getting COVID-19, the number of people dying from COVID-19, the number of people going hungry, the number of people getting sick, and the number of people dying from other causes including the additional burden caused by the lockdown)," he added.

On Sunday, Roque said the IATF will decide on the next quarantine classification based on science and hard data, specifically the attack rate and the hospital care utilization rate while checking the economic health of the nation.

To date, the Philippines has recorded 997,523 COVID-19 infections after logging 8,162 new cases Sunday, April 25.

Related Tags

President Duterte Harry Roque mecq COVID-19 pandemic coronavirus pandemic covid-19 roque general community quarantine Talk to the People modified enhanced community quarantine Coronavirus disease DUTERTE coronavirus quarantine lockdown covid GCQ
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