(Eagle News) – Malacanang said that it would study suggestions to make the Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine (MECQ) effective for one month in Metro Manila and other areas with high COVID-19 cases.
In a statement, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said that this is up to the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) to decide.
He noted how the effects of the MECQ in Metro Manila, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal would be felt in “two to three weeks after its enforcement.” The MECQ in these areas is set to end on Aug. 18.
“We understand that the effects of the recent implementation of modified enhanced quarantine (MECQ) measures in the National capital Region (NCR) and nearby areas would be felt two to three weeks after its enforcement,” Roque said.
Roque said that the decision to extend the MECQ would be a delicate balancing act between safeguarding the public’s health and saving the economy.
“On the suggestion to make the MECQ effective for one month, this is a decision that has to be made by the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID). It entails a delicate balancing of protecting and saving people’s health to protecting and saving the economic health of the nation,” he said.
For now, he said, they would study the impact of putting back under MECQ Metro Manila, and the surrounding provinces (Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal) last Aug. 4.
“The incubation period for COVID-19, according to health experts, is 14 days so we just have to wait for that time to ascertain the health impact of the MECQ classification,” Roque said.
President Rodrigo Duterte placed the Philippine capital and four surrounding provinces under MECQ amid the rising COVID-19 cases that have already strained the country’s health care workers and health facilities.
As of Sunday, Aug. 9, active COVID-19 cases are close to 60,000, while total cases have nearly reached 130,000, making the Philippines the country with the most COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia.
(Eagle News Service)
