2 solons push for granular lockdowns, ‘bakuna, business’ bubbles

NO ENTRY, NO EXIT Granular lockdowns will be pilot tested in Metro Manila to stop the spread of the more contagious Delta variant.  INQUIRER file photo / NINO JESUS ORBETA

MANILA, Philippines — Two lawmakers are urging the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) to impose granular lockdowns and “bakuna and business” bubbles.

Under House Resolution No. 2209, Reps. Stella Luz Quimbo and Sharon Garin pointed out that due to the imposition of lockdowns, the Philippine economy experienced the worst contraction on record at 9.5 percent in 2020, with unemployment rate peaking in April of the same year.

The two lawmakers added that despite the implementation and re-implementation of enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) and modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ), daily COVID-19 cases continue to skyrocket.

“There is an urgent necessity to lift the IATF-MEID’s current policy on quarantine classifications and in lieu thereof, impose granular lockdowns on high-risk areas on the basis of, and automatically triggered by, epidemiologically determined thresholds on number of COVID-19 cases and COVID-19 infection growth rates,” the lawmakers said.

“Granular lockdowns are necessary to arrest the rapid rise of COVID-19 cases, and must be implemented through government -led efforts in tracing, isolating, and treating infected individuals,” they added.

The lawmakers said to effectively implement the granular lockdowns, the Department of Social Welfare and Development should coordinate with the local government units in providing affected residents with cash or in-kind assistance.

Aside from the imposition of granular lockdowns, the lawmakers are also pushing for “bakuna bubbles” which would allow fully-vaccinated individuals greater mobility.

“Alongside granular lockdowns and bakuna bubbles, business bubbles must be allowed in order to let businesses, whether deemed essential or non-essential, to operate so long as they deploy fully vaccinated employees and they subject such employees to regular COVID-19 testing to adequately protect both their livelihoods and their consumers, complemented by transport bubbles the would safely ferry fully vaccinated employees to their workplaces,” the lawmakers said.

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