The Department of Health on Wednesday backed the National Task Force’s proposal to prohibit home quarantine for COVID-19 patients and their close contacts to prevent community transmission of the coronavirus.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire made the disclosure a day after Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said the government was planning a ban on home quarantine, and that the ban would be enforced within this week.
“Based on the observations of the National Task Force, many are on home quarantine and it’s preferred by people, but community transmission is happening,” Vergeire said.
“That’s why the government prefers that those who are symptomatic be isolated.”
The Department of Health is looking into 28 consecutive days, or two consecutive incubation periods of the virus, with no new infections that could be seen as a success in ridding the country of COVID-19.
“Are there indications that the numbers will stop? We are not certain at this point. We’ll see. We’re still carefully studying the trends and other factors,” Vergeire said.
“When we come to the point of having two incubation periods, like 28 days without any reported case, that’s when we can say we have been successful in all of these things we are doing for this response.”
Meanwhile, Joint Task Force COVID Shield Commander Guillermo Eleazar on Wednesday ordered a crackdown on the syndicates engaged in the falsification of medical certificates and other travel documents of locally stranded individuals.
In coordination with the Philippine National Police under Chief General Camilo Cascolan, Eleazar said, police commanders must ensure that the perpetrators would be arrested, charged and prevented from going back to their illegal activities.
“While all arriving [stranded individuals] are being subjected to medical checks and quarantines as a matter of protocol by the receiving local government units, those who use fake medical clearance certificate and travel authority endanger the health and safety of other travelers they would be traveling with,” Eleazar said in a statement.
Vergeire said as of Sept. 5, which is the latest available data, 84.9 percent of the 1,742 clusters of COVID-19 cases in the country were due to community transmission.
Meanwhile, as of Sept. 6, at least 41 percent of the 167,000 beds in state-run quarantine facilities were occupied. Willie Casas
The highest occupancy rate at 59 percent has been recorded in Metro Manila, where the bulk of the COVID-19 cases are, followed by Region 5 at 56 percent and Region 2 at 51 percent.
The Cordillera Administrative Region, Region 3, and Region 4, on the other hand, did not meet the minimum standard of having one bed in a quarantine facility per 2,500 people.
Año said 50,000 more contact tracers would be hired in the coming days, in addition to the 238,000 that had already been recruited.
He said the additional contact tracers to be hired could be deployed in the areas where the workforce for contacting was really needed.
He said 20,000 contact tracers would be deployed to Luzon, 15,000 to the Visayas and 15,000 to Mindanao.