This photo taken on April 6, 2021 shows a man wearing personal protective equipment walking into a makeshift ward built for COVID-19 patients at a hospital in Manila. More contagious variants of the coronavirus have been blamed for a record surge in infections in Metro Manila that has overwhelmed hospitals and sent the national capital region into lockdown. (Photo by JAM STA ROSA / AFP)
MANILA, Philippines — The country’s daily COVID-19 cases might exceed 30,000 if the government does not impose the stricter enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in Metro Manila, Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said Monday.
“If we do not do the ECQ, we might see the cases going beyond 30,000 per day. So importante yung ECQ to keep it at the lower limit,” Nograles said in an interview on ABS-CBN News Channel.
“The lower limit we were looking at even with ECQ, we were looking at projections like 18,000 a day. And 18,000 a day, hopefully yung 18,000 na yan, mas marami sa kanila bigger majority would not need hospitalization,” he added.
(The lower limit we were looking at even with ECQ, we were looking at projections like 18,000 a day. And at 18,000 a day, hopefully the majority of them would not need hospitalization.)
Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO)
Nograles said these were the projections presented to the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases that made the body decide on imposing ECQ.
Metro Manila’s status will be adjusted to ECQ starting this Friday, August 6 until August 20 to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 Delta variant.
While the region is under ECQ, Nograles said the plan is to further boost the vaccination drive to prevent critical or severe cases of COVID-19.
“What we want to do is delay the Delta variant from becoming the predominant variant so much so until we ramp up the vaccinations we need primarily para sa mga senior citizens, [persons with] comorbidities and everybody else,” said Nograles, who also serves as co-chair of the IATF.
“While mag-e-ECQ tayo, kailangan din natin pataasin yung vaccination rollout to protect our population para kung in case magka-COVID whether Delta variant o hindi, it won’t go to the severe or critical case of the infection,” he added.
(While we’re under ECQ, we need to ramp up the vaccination rollout to protect our population so that in case they get COVID, whether it’s the Delta variant or not, it won’t go to the severe or critical case of the infection.)
The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) said Metro Manila mayors are eyeing to administer as much as 250,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses daily during the two-week ECQ over the region.