No "new normal" for Philippines yet by July, says Palace
No areas in the Philippines will shift to "new normal" after June 30 as the government will continue to enforce quarantine measures amid the coronavirus disease pandemic, Malacañang said on Tuesday.
In a virtual press briefing, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said under Resolution No. 48 of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Infectious Diseases on June 22, there will be "re-calibration" of the current parameters, specifically the case doubling time (CDT) and critical care utilization rate (CUR), in determining the risk classification of provinces, highly urbanized cities and independent component cities starting July 1.
For areas under "high-risk" classification, they could either be under enhanced community quarantine or modified ECQ, if with modifiers; for "moderate-risk," they could either be under general community quarantine or modified GCQ, if with modifiers; and for "low-risk," they would be placed under MGCQ.
"This means there will be no new normal yet. It means all the places in the Philippines will be under community quarantine," said Roque.
The modifiers for MECQ and MGCQ are social, economic, and security factors; clustering of cases; health system capacity; and continuous trend or increasing/decreasing new cases, CUR, CDT, among others, according to Resolution No. 48.
Under the same resolution, the IATF has constituted a sub-Technical Working Group led by the Department of Tourism, together with the Department of Foreign Affairs, Department of Finance, Department of Justice with Bureau of Immigration, Department of Health with Bureau of Quarantine, and Board of Investments to study and address the management of foreign nationals who would be allowed to enter the country for specific purposes.
Roque earlier said that an embassy, which he did not name, is requesting the government to lift the ban on foreign workers involved in flagship projects of the governments.
The existing quarantine classification in various parts of the country is effective until end of June. This means, the IATF, subject to the approval of President Rodrigo Duterte, will come up with an updated quarantine classification on or before June 30 to be effective starting July 1. Celerina Monte/DMS
