Monday, March 29, 2021

Health experts want longer lockdown. Inquirer Newsletter. March 30, 2021.

MACABRE STUNT A coffin placed in the middle of the pedestrian walkway of busy Guadalupe Bridge on Edsa greets Makati City-bound motorists on Monday. The coffin features a photograph of Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison and accompanied by a streamer showing photographs of students allegedly recruited by the New People’s Army and killed in clashes with the military. Another coffin with messages condemning the communist movement was seen in Quezon City on Sunday night. —MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

World

Cargo ship stuck in Suez ‘has turned’; hope rises

The enormous container ship blocking the Suez Canal for almost a week has been turned 80 percent in the right direction, officials said on Monday, raising hopes the vital trade route could soon be clear. —AFP

Business

Credit rating at risk due to delayed recovery

A delayed economic rebound due to recent tighter restrictions to curb a surge in COVID-19 infections is a “credit negative” risk to the Philippines’ investment-grade rating, debt watcher Moody’s Investors Service said Monday. —STORY BY Ben O. de Vera

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Health experts want longer lockdown

By Leila B. Salaverria

Health experts have recommended an extension of the one week hard lockdown in Metro Manila and four nearby provinces to really bring down the number of COVID-19 cases in the country, and Malacañang says the recommendation will be considered along with its implication on the economy and the health of the people.

Metro Manila, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal have been placed on enhanced community quarantine until April 4 in a bid to curb the fast rising number of COVID-19 cases, which the government has attributed to the more transmissible variants of the coronavirus.

Not enough

At a briefing in the Palace on Monday, Alethea de Guzman, director of the epidemiology bureau of the Department of Health (DOH), presented a graph showing the projection of the number of COVID-19 cases in Metro Manila based on different scenarios.

It showed that a one-week lockdown would not be enough to continuously bring case numbers down.

De Guzman said there would be a slowdown in the increase of cases after one week, but this could rise again after lockdown was lifted.

“Which is why one of the things proposed, one of the things recommended by our experts, is we might need to extend, because with the extension of the [lockdown], we would be able to see the continuous decline in cases,” she said.

De Guzman said she understood the economic implication of extending the lockdown. “This is not a decision we will make hastily. We will look at the data in the following week to determine if this would really be necessary,” she added.

The graph, which was also presented by presidential spokesperson Harry Roque during his briefing, showed that imposing the hard lockdown until April 4 could bring cases in Metro Manila to 550,000 to 600,000 by the end of the month. —WITH REPORTS FROM DONA Z. PAZZIBUGAN, JODEE A. AGONCILLO AND ROY STEPHEN C. CANIVEL INQ

Editorial

Brave voices

Deserving of mention in the roll call of the brave is Judge Emmanuel Cacho Rasing of the Baguio Regional Trial Court Branch 3. Last week, Rasing's court pushed back against the excesses of the Duterte administration's anti-insurgency campaign by issuing an order prohibiting the Cordillera police from making social media posts and putting up tarpaulins branding four students as 'communists-terrorists.'

Read full story: opinion.inquirer.net