​Lockdown watch (3)

PHILIPPINES - In Brief 12 Apr 2021 by Romeo Bernardo

As expected, President Duterte yesterday put Metro Manila and four surrounding provinces (“NCR+”) under modified enhanced community quarantine (mECQ), a looser form of lockdown compared with the ECQ in place over the past two weeks. In general, mECQ rules allow movement of workers although on-site work for permitted industries is capped at 50% and most close contact services remain closed. Also, gatherings are allowed up to 10% of venue capacity and curfews start a few hours later. The mECQ setup will be in place until the end of the month.Although the shift to mECQ helps to contain economic losses, a swift and meaningful restart of activities will likely be hampered not only by the still restrictive rules but also by people fearful of infection and/or lacking in purchasing power given government’s meager cash subsidy and informality of most jobs (no-work-no-pay). Despite the fall in the reproduction number in Metro Manila to 1.2 and projections of further declines under mECQ, hospitals remain full with ICU capacity at critical levels in the nation’s capital. Moreover, cases have hovered around 12k in recent days with positivity rates about 20% despite increased testing (from around 30k to 40k per day). Based on scant data of samples sequenced (Table 1), apart from driving sharper surges in some cities, the share of those sickened by variants of the coronavirus may be creeping up. In view of their high transmissibility, this has heightened worries that the worst may not be over, especially given sluggish vaccination with less than 1.2% of target population inoculated as of end-March.TABLE 1.PH Genome Center biosurveillance report**Not a variant of concernSource: DOHCHA...

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