BY IRMA ISIP and ANGELA CELIS
The Philippines may be ready to remove all alert levels as early as March or by April and shift to standard minimum health protocols instead.
Presidential adviser on entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion told the Laging Handa public briefing, in a zoom call from California, that granular lockdowns will also no longer be needed as the Omicron experience has taught Filipinos sick with the new coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) to self-isolate for the prescribed number of days and come out of the illness like recovering from the normal flu.
Concepcion said the proposals will be incorporated in the government’s proposed exit plan which includes further reopening of industries.
Karl Kendrick Chua, socioeconomic planning secretary, said in a separate virtual briefing also yesterday removing the alert level system as part of the pandemic exit plan “would merit some serious thinking.”
Chua, who is director-general of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said the government should begin the process of changing its paradigm from the pandemic to a more endemic mindset.
“For the time being, since we are not yet fully out of the pandemic, this (alert level system) is something that I think we should presently retain,” Chua said.
Chua said it has been proven that the alert level system works by prioritizing or managing the risks at the sources of highest risks and allowing the rest of the people to move around safely and to go back to work.
Concepcion also said Metro Manila and other parts of Luzon can also be downgraded to alert level 1 by end February, owing to the high vaccination rate in these areas.
Concepcion said this will allow the resumption of the operations casinos, concerts and other entertainment events which had been closed the past 22 months; ease further of travel restriction and; increase capacities of businesses.
Concepcion sees the first quarter as a good start for the year, at 6 percent or even better GDP growth, and a “great” second quarter, the last quarter of the Duterte administration.
“It’s four months to go for this administration, we want to turn over the economy in a healthy state and not sick with COVID-19 (new coronavirus disease-2019), ” said Concepcion, in a zoom feed from California.
He said the lowering to Alert Level 2 of Metro Manila and other areas starting February 1 and the lifting of the quarantine requirements for fully- vaccinated arriving tourists, overseas Filipinos and balikbayans starting February 10 will be a big boost to tourism especially for areas hit by Typhoon Odette.
Concepcion said industries will craft their own exit plans but will use standard health protocols in their businesses.
At the NEDA briefing, Undersecretary Rosemarie Edillon, said while data has yet to be completed for the month of December, preliminary figures in the government’s scorecard show an improvement in the country’s pandemic response versus the previous month.
“Overall, we are improving, even though we do not yet have the data on the flight activities for December, we actually think that that was also improved in December, and therefore we could say that we were heading in the right direction,” Edillon said.
Earlier, Edillon said that in November, the Philippines’ overall score in the National Act Plan (NAP) 4 scorecard is 6.99 versus the perfect score of nine.
In terms of indicators, which each had a perfect score of three, Edillon said the score for infection management improved to 2.74 in December from 2.53 in November, while for vaccine rollout, the figure also saw improvement to 2.2 from 2.02 in the previous month.
As for socioeconomic recovery, the score in November is 2.44, but no score is available so far for December since, as Edillon mentioned, data for flight activities is not yet available.
Thus, the overall score for December is yet to be derived.
In a press statement, Concepcion said now that the country is vaccinating 12 to 17 and 5 to 11 year olds, “ we will push the Inter-Agency Task Force to open our schools, provided that both students and teachers are fully vaccinated.
Concepcion said bringing back students to school should be prioritized, provided that they are vaccinated and belong to households with 100 percent vaccination rate or no unvaccinated senior citizens in the house.
“Vaccinated kids belonging to 70 percent vaccinated households or no unvaccinated senior citizens in the house and living in areas with 80 percent of the population vaccinated, can also attend face-to-face classes,” Concepcion said.
