IATF updates method for appeals on quarantine reclassification

FILE: Photo shows a bus travels along the busway near the Edsa-Kamuning flyover in Quezon City on Tuesday (June 23, 2020). (PNA photo by Joey O. Razon)

MANILA – The government’s policy-making body in addressing the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic has updated the method for local government appeals on the reclassification of community quarantines in their respective areas.

In a virtual presser on Tuesday, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque announced six points which the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) has required local governments to submit.

Under IATF Resolution 48, the updated methodology for local government appeals, which are required information for mandatory submission are as follows:

— Daily trend of active cases, number, and percent of population;

— Percent of close contacts traced, and percent of contacts in quarantine;

— Number and utilization of community isolation beds;

— Met health system capacity targets and utilization;

— Covid Special Teams investigations and results; and

— Priority areas for segmental lockdown.

“The sub-technical working group on data analytics, in coordination with the IATF spokesperson, and the Task Group on Strategic Communications are hereby directed to cascade these revised criteria and parameters for decision-making to the local government units and to the general public for full transparency about the grounds for IATF decision,” the resolution read.

In the same resolution, the IATF-EID also announced that all parts of the country will remain under a form of community quarantine after it removed the “new normal” classification under its directives.

There will only be four levels of community quarantine: the strictest enhanced community quarantine, modified ECQ, general community quarantine, and the most relaxed modified GCQ.

The IATF-EID’s recalibrated parameters showed that high-risk areas will be placed on ECQ or MECQ based on case doubling time — or the number of days it takes for cases to double — and critical care utilization rate, which refers to the percentage of mechanical ventilators and isolation beds in temporary facilities as well as hospitals that are being utilized. The two rates are used to gauge the health system’s capacity to cope with infections.

On June 15, President Rodrigo Duterte announced that Cebu City would be reverted to the strictest ECQ.

Modified ECQ was imposed in Talisay City, a component city under the province of Cebu.

GCQ was implemented in Metro Manila; the provinces of Cagayan, Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino, Aurora, Bataan, Bulacan, Tarlac, Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon, Occidental Mindoro, Bohol, Cebu, Negros Oriental, Siquijor; and the cities of Santiago, Olongapo, Mandaue, Lapu-Lapu, Zamboanga and Davao.

The rest of the country is under modified GCQ.

As of Tuesday, health authorities recorded a total of 31,825 confirmed Covid-19 cases, of which 1,186 are deaths and 8,442 are recoveries.