MANILA, Philippines — The government is eyeing the pilot testing of the granular lockdown with an alert level system in the National Capital Region (NCR) on September 16, a Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) official said.
“Ang alert levels po, itong pilot po, ay pasisimulan po natin hopefully by September 16 to 30 sa National Capital Region lamang,” DILG Usec. Epimaco Densing III said in a Palace briefing Friday.
(The pilot testing of the alert level will hopefully start on September 16 to 30 in the National Capital Region only.)
“Gagamitan muna natin ng mga alert levels…hindi na po natin gagamitin itong mga terms na GCQ (general community quarantine), ECQ (enhanced community quarantine),” he added.
(We will use alert levels…we won’t use the terms GCQ and ECQ in NCR.)
The government will be imposing a granular lockdown in NCR with a four-level alert system which will determine the businesses activities allowed in a certain area.
Under a granular lockdown, the local government units will only restrict the movement of residents in small areas—either in a specific building, street, zone, village, and other areas where there are high cases of COVID-19.
READ: Gov’t trims down quarantine classifications to ECQ, GCQ
The government was supposed to pilot test the granular lockdown in Metro Manila on Sept. 8 but the decision was deferred.
At present, Metro Manila is under a modified ECQ status.