DTI chief says COVID-19 rampage partly driven by private gatherings of family, friends
Without citing data, Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez blamed the record-high surge in new COVID-19 cases on gatherings of family and friends while denying that reopening the economy too soon may have had a hand in the problem. In an interview with radio station dzRH on Monday (March 22), Lopez said the number of new infections was not as high as current numbers when the government started reopening the economy sometime late in 2020. Instead, he said “secret parties” of families and groups of friends, who got tired of the lockdown, could be driving the surge. When asked if he had any data to support this claim, he told reporters in a Viber message: “No data. But those were observations. Look around.” It is not clear why these data are not available, especially if there are contact tracing efforts. “You know what really happened a lot now is that, because of the lockdown fatigue, many people who haven’t seen each other in a while attempted to see each other again,” he said in Filipino during the radio interview. “There were many reunions, whether these be former classmates or family relatives that have not seen each other. There are a lot of secret parties. A lot happened,” he added. “This is where, of course, the compliance rate slightly dropped because people saw each other in private,” he said. “That’s why it’s better to be in a restaurant actually [because] you can be monitored in public. But in private, you can [opt to] not wear a mask all throughout,” he said. He made these comments as the country saw a record breaking increase in new coronavirus infections over the past few days. Although it is true that the daily rate of new infections was not this high when the economy was being reopened in 2020, the curve was also not flat, which meant the outbreak was still not under control. “If you think about it, when we allowed dine-in restaurants in August or September last year, the cases didn’t climb this high,” he said in Filipino. “When we reopened the economic activity, it did not lead to (a rise in) COVID-19 cases,” he said in Filipino. More than a year under the lockdown, Filipinos have found themselves facing the same invisible enemy, but this time in new variants, mixed with similar and new quarantine restrictions, and without any cash aid. Although there are now vaccines available, this is still currently out of reach for many Filipinos. For the past several months, the government has been encouraging the public to go out and buy in order to revive the economy, while observing health protocols. Lopez has been publicly advocating a further reopening of the economy but alongside observance of health protocols. Lopez recently got infected with SARS Cov2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, for the second time in months. When he disclosed his infection last week, he said he had been wearing face mask, face shield and has been socially distancing outside his home but still “got it.” “Our economic managers set us up to fail,” said Dr. Anthony Leachon, a former adviser to the National Task Force for COVID-19 response, according to a previous report. The country’s economic managers had pushed hard for the reopening of the economy—including opening malls and cinemas, as well as allowing minors age 10 to 15 to go out, despite coronavirus transmission remaining uncontrolled, Leachon said. The loosening of regulations “set the people up to be lax,” he added. “At the end of the day, these government officials blame the people for not following protocols, when they were the ones who set up the rules,” Leachon said.
