The Philippines is moving towards the removal of province-wide community quarantines in favor of granular lockdowns, Malacañang said Thursday as the country faces yet another surge on the second year of the pandemic.
Local lockdowns, or those that are village or street-wide, are more "effective" in terms of controlling the spread of the virus based on the Philippines' experience, Palace spokesperson Harry Roque said.
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"The science supports and our experience supports the view na mas epektibo po talaga ang localized at granular lockdowns," Roque said in a Palace press briefing.
"We are moving towards that direction na dahil ang LGUs naman talaga ang nakakaalam kung nasaan ang mga areas [na high-risk sa COVID-19]...It's a principle that has been approved as a principle pero yung details hindi pa po na-approve," he said.
The government first implemented lockdowns in March 2020, starting with the very first "community quarantine" in Metro Manila.
Later, the government passed a four-tier community quarantine system ranging from the strictest enhanced community quarantine or ECQ to the loosest modified general community quarantine or MGCQ.
It has been the system of the government to change or update the community quarantine protocols every two weeks in line with the 14-day incubation period of the virus.
This August, the government revived the strictest lockdown, ECQ, in Metro Manila and selected provinces due to a surge in COVID-19 cases fueled by the highly contagious coronavirus Delta variant.
The government's task force for pandemic response is yet to announce their decision on granular versus province-wide lockdowns. With prevailing restrictions expiring on August 31, we will have to wait and see if this changes the new community quarantine protocols for the month of September.
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