IATF removes ‘new normal’ phase; all areas in PH under community quarantine
Updated June 23, 2020, 6:07 PM
The government has temporarily removed the “new normal” in the community quarantine phases as the country remained largely under relaxed lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease.
The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Infectious Diseases (IATF) has approved the “recalibration” of the parameters for risk classification of provinces, highly urbanized cities and independent component cities effective July 1.
“Sa ngayon po ay wala munang new normal. Ibig sabihin, lahat ng lugar sa Pilipinas ay mayroon pa rin pong community quarantine. So iyan po iyong pinakapagbabago doon sa inaprubahang parameters (For now, there will be no new normal. It means all places in the Philippines are under community quarantine. That’s the latest change in the approved parameters),” Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said during a televised press briefing Tuesday.
“Pero pareho pa rin po ang basehan niyan – case doubling time, critical care utilization at tinitingnan din po iyong ekonomiya (But our basis remains the same — case doubling time, critical care utilization and we will also look into the economy),” he said.
Under the new IATF classification, areas with high risk of coronavirus infection will either be placed under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) or modified community quarantine (MECQ).
Moderate risk places will be either classified as general community quarantine (GCQ) or modified general community quarantine (MGCQ). Low-risk areas will fall under modified general community quarantine (MGCQ).
The “modifiers” for MECQ and MGCQ will also include social, economic, and security factors; clustering of cases; health system capacity; and, continues trend or increasing/decreasing new cases, according to the task force.
Prior to the recalibration of quarantine parameters, the government included a “post-community quarantine scenario” under the omnibus guidelines on community quarantine. Areas that have no community quarantine are supposed to be considered as being under the new normal.
Under the community quarantine guidelines, new normal refers “to the emerging behaviors, situations, and minimum public health standards that will be institutionalized in common or routine practices and remain even after the pandemic while the disease is not totally eradicated through means such as widespread immunization.” “These include actions that will become second nature to the general public as well as policies such as bans on large gatherings that will continue to remain in force,” the IATF guidelines read.
Except for Cebu City and Talisay City that are under ECQ and MECQ respectively due to sharp rise in infection cases, the country has been placed under GCQ or MGCQ until the end of the month.
Method for local government appeals
In the same resolution, the IATF has updated the methodology on how local government units may appeal their quarantine classification.
The LGUs must submit information such as daily trend of cases, number and percent of population; percent of close contacts traced, and percent of contacts in quarantine; number and use of community isolation beds; healthy system capacity targets and utilization; COVID special teams investigations and results; and priority areas for segmental lockdown.
The task force has also adopted five basic reporting parameters on the coronavirus data. These are national daily number of cases adjusted for date of report, including the seven-day moving average; national daily number of cases; association of number of daily tests and daily positivity rate; time-varying reproduction number; and COVID-19 deaths over time.
