Dr. John Wong, an epidemiologist, said on Monday, April 26, that the government needs to look at several 'forward looking indicators' before deciding whether to place Metro Manila, Bulacan, Laguna, Cavite, and Rizal under general community quarantine.
"So for cities and municipalities kasi these are measured at the community level, we need to know how well our people complying with masking and social distancing," Wong explained during a virtual press briefing.
"In terms of people who are sick ‘no, we need to know how fast are we identifying people with symptoms and how fast are we testing, isolating and quarantining them ‘no," he added.
Wong, an adviser for the National Task Force Against the 2019 Coronavirus Disese, said that the government must also measure how fast the country can increase the number of people vaccinated per day.
He said that the Philippines should strive to inoculate at least 350,000 people per day so that the country could reach its target of inoculating 70 percent of the population before March next year.
"Although ideally ‘no, we should be vaccinating a 100 percent of our population because of the variants ‘no and the fact that we don’t know whether, how long the duration of protection of the vaccines are," Wong explained.
"We don’t know yet whether herd immunity is achievable ‘no. So, well this is a target that we should try to strive for," he added.
Another indicator is the percentage of COVID-19 cases and close contacts who manage to complete their isolation and quarantine periods.
Wong also said that the government should monitor whether businesses practice social distancing, the wearing of face masks, and proper ventilation inside their premises.
He discourages easing the community quarantine status in the National Capital Region, and the four provinces until local government units report on the status of the aforementioned indicators.
"So we need the national and local government to monitor and to report on how well they are performing on these indicators ‘no. So without accountability or visibility on these indicators, I would say na we’re not yet ready for GCQ," Wong said.
Wong stressed that monitoring the COVID-19 reproduction number will not be enough to determine whether an area could maintain a low number of cases while under general community quarantine status.
