Palace: ECQ, MECQ in NCR Plus all worked well

MANILA, Philippines — The stricter quarantine measures in the so-called NCR Plus have worked to slow down the coronavirus spread. Malacañang said Monday as the Philippines’ total number of COVID-19 cases creeps closer to a million mark.

“Gumana po ang ating ECQ [enhanced community quarantine] at MECQ [modified enhanced community quarantine]. Napababa po natin sa less than 1 pa nga ang ating R-naught,” presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said in an online briefing.

(Our ECQ and MECQ worked. Even our R-naught value was reduced below one.)

Roque said Metro Manila’s R-naught or the speed of the coronavirus spread has slipped to 0.91. Despite this, he noted the government must sustain the gains from ECQ and MECQ through the Prevent-Detect-Isolate-Treat-Reintegrate strategy.

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque says the stricter quarantine measures in NCR Plus have worked to slow down the coronavirus spread. File photo from PTV video

The Philippines on Sunday recorded 8,162 new COVID-19 infections, pushing the total caseload to 997,523.

READ: DOH: 8,162 new COVID-19 cases but active infections steadily going down

But Roque insisted the government did “well” because only around 100,000 of these cases remained active.

“Alam ninyo po iyong one million, huwag ninyo pong titingnan lamang ang one million cases. Unang-una halos 900,000 na po ang gumaling diyan so mga aktibong cases ay mahigit-kumulang 100,000,” Roque said.

(Don’t just look at the million cases. First of all, almost 900,000 have recovered and the active cases are around 100,000.)

“So I don’t think it is a negative reflection. On the other hand dahil nga po mayroon tayong world ranking, makikita po natin na we are still managing the new variants rather well,” he added.

(So I don’t think it is a negative reflection. On the other hand, since we have the world ranking, we see that we are still managing the new variants rather well.)

Roque said the Philippines has dropped to 26th from 20th in terms of the highest number of COVID-19 cases.

The government is set to decide on NCR Plus quarantine classifications for May this week.

READ: Duterte may announce new quarantine status for NCR Plus on April 28

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