‘We need a time out’: OCTA Research supports 1-week ECQ extension on NCR Plus

MANILA – A public health expert said Wednesday that he supports the call to extend the improved community quarantine in Metro Manila and 4 surrounding provinces to curb new COVID-19 outbreaks that were putting pressure on contact tracing and healthcare systems. from the country.

“We need a time out to update our contact tracking [and] to build new isolation and quarantine facilities. This will allow us to come out of the lockdown with decreasing but still high numbers that we can manage adequately without risking another increase, “Fr Nicanor Austriaco from the OCTA Research Team told ANC.

Hospitals in the capital region and the provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal have reached a critical level in the occupancy of COVID-19 beds.

On Monday, daily coronavirus infections in the country hit another record after surpassing 10,000 for the first time since the pandemic began. The Philippines has 124,680 active cases or patients considered infectious, the highest among Southeast Asian nations.

For the molecular biologist, it would take another week to see the full effect of the renewed strict lockdown measure on the country’s case count and health care utilization rate. The ECQ went into effect on March 29 and will end on April 4.

“We, my colleagues and I at OCTA, support the other experts who would like the government to extend this for at least 1 more week because it will take 14 days to eliminate the virus from new victims by isolating people from each other.” who teaches biology and theology at Providence College in the United States.

Due to the high volume of recent infections, the country’s contact tracing system has also collapsed, he said, citing contact tracing czar Benjamin Magalong.

An ECQ extension, the strictest of the country’s 4 tiers of lockdown measures, will lower the infection rate as it further limits the movement of people amid the presence of more infectious variants of coronavirus, he added.

The Health Department on Tuesday recommended an extension of ECQ on the so-called “NCR Plus” to combat the outbreak, which has killed more than 13,000 people.

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