De Lima: Wide-scale total lockdown ‘unacceptable’

Senator Leila De Lima

MANILA, Philippines — While she is against the total lifting of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), Senator Leila De Lima said a wide-scale imposition of a total lockdown is also “unacceptable.”

“Without yet a cure for the virus, total lifting of ECQ is definitely out of the question. A non-option,” De Lima said in a handwritten dispatch on Thursday.

“Total lockdown, wide-scale, while theoretically an option, is unacceptable,” she added.

De Lima cited issues in feeding the public and the distribution of cash aid for low-income households to help them cope with the coronavirus pandemic and the quarantine.

“A more hungry and angry populace is a veritable social volcano. Malinaw naman na hindi kaya ng gobyerno na pakainin ang lahat na dapat pakainin,” De Lima said.

“Kung ngayon ngang nasa ECQ tayo, ang dami nang mga kakulangan at kapalpakan sa pagbigay ng cash aid sa ilalim ng Social Amelioration Program, ano pa kaya kung total lockdown tayo?” she added.

A total lockdown, however, “on a strictly case-to-case basis, barangay or district level and for a very limited duration, under clear guidelines with sufficient provisions for sustenance of the affected community” is possible, De Lima said.

“That leaves us with two choices—continue with the present ECQ or attempt a calibrated lifting of the ECQ after April 30, especially in places outside of NCR that are registering minimal levels of COVID infection,” De Lima said.

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque has said that experts invited by President Rodrigo Duterte did not recommend a total lockdown or a full extension of the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine beyond April 30.

Roque said most of the experts have recommended to either retain, relax or lift quarantine measures in areas depending on the number of its COVID-19 cases.

DOH’s incomplete data?

To make the right decision regarding the quarantine, De Lima said that the government has to rely on reliable and complete data.

However, De Lima claimed that the data of the Department of Health (DOH) has is “incomplete”, noting that records from the agency only reflect those who tested positive for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

“It is silent on the tens or hundreds dying in hospitals or in their homes who were not tested for the virus, and therefore are not even included in any government documentation as deaths most probably arising from COVID-19 infection. We are not even performing post-mortem tests as a policy,” De Lima said.

Data on COVID-19 positive cases is also less indicative of the total infection in the country than of the daily capability of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) to process COVID-19 tests, De Lima said.

“It is merely the daily average of tests processed by RITM and other COVID-19 testing centers nationwide, rather than a measurement of how widespread the virus infection in the entire country actually is,” the senator explained.

Thus, those who conclude that the country is flattening the curve based on the data of the health department “are not only raising false hopes, they are endangering the public as well.”

“We are not flattening the curve because there is no hard data available on which we can base this conclusion, hard data that can only be available through mass testing,” De Lima said.

Mass testing

De Lima underscored the importance of mass testing, citing countries such as Germany and South Korea which have implemented such measures.

“Only after mass testing can we really know if we are flattening the curve, and if our healthcare system is over the worst and reached the peak of demand for hospital beds as a result of the pandemic. It is only then can we say if the ECQ actually worked, and that we are flattening the curve,” De Lima said.

“Let us not fall into the trap of Duterte’s false choices between a ruined economy and a pandemic ravaging our people. He is the singular reason why we have been brought to this situation in the first place,” she added.

The senator said that it is only after mass testing that the government can choose what to do between continuing or modifying the current quarantine.

“It is only then can we choose a thoroughly assessed and well-planned calibrated lifting of the ECQ, an option I personally espouse, as an intelligent, responsible, and life-saving and economy-saving policy. As always, our call should be an intensified mass testing now!” De Lima said.

As of April 22, there are 6,710 COVID-19 cases in the country, with the death toll at 446.