It’s ECQ anew
IT’S enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) again in the heavily-populated Metropolitan Manila (MM) area, the premier region in this impoverished Asian nation of English-speaking people.
This in the wake of the mushrooming number of coronavirus disease 2019 cases in some countries and the emergence of the more infectious COVID-19 “Delta” strain the Philippines.
The government decreed the two-week (August 6-20) lockdown in the National Capital Region (NCR)to ensure that Filipinos will not suffer the same fate as the Indians and the Indonesians.
National Task Force Against COVID-19 chief implementer and vaccine czar Secretary Carlito Gallvez Jr. noted a significant spike in COVID-19 cases due mainly to the “Delta” variant.
“If we will not declare ECQ in the National Capital Region (NCR), we will be the next India or Indonesia,” said Galvez during the House health committee public hearing last Wednesday.
He added: “Let us not wait for our healthcare workers to be overwhelmed and later surrender. We have to protect them. Preventing them to be overwhelmed is our primary duty.”
We agree with Secretary Galvez that the return of ECQ is needed to disrupt the transmission of the dreaded “Delta” variant in the country’s economic center.
Before recommending to President Duterte the reimposition of ECQ, the national task force consulted leaders of the business sector.
The business leaders reportedly said that “if we will not do something drastic to stop the transmission (of the variant), we might not recover in the fourth quarter.”
Dr. Edsel Salvana, infectious disease expert, had earlier warned that the “Delta” strain is 60 per cent more transmissible than the UK variant and three times more contagious than the original SARS-COV-2 virus.
In the view of many, the government deserves the support of the public if we are to address the COVID-19 pandemic.
Huwag tayong laging pasaway.
