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Malacanang said OCTA Research's recommendation to implement a three-week hard lockdown on COVID-19 hotspots ''seems not doable.''

"For now, it seems not doable because we do not want to increase the number of people who are suffering from hunger. We are aiming for total health to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 cases and hunger," Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said in a briefing on Thursday.

"Our objective for the less than 2 percent that should be hospitalized, there should be a hospital that can accommodate them and although our ICU beds are in critical level they have not reached the full capacity," he added.

OCTA Research Fellow Guido David made the recommendation as he warns that a single day count of up to 25,000 new cases can be seen in the next two weeks.

But David, hours before Roque's comment, said the comment about a three-week lockdown was taken out of context.

''We did not recommend it. We were just talking about possible scenarios,'' he said in his Twitter account. Robina Asido/DMS