Two weeks ago President Duterte announced an extension of the general community quarantine classification for the National Capital Region until the end of January, about two weeks from now. Duterte said the restriction was to prevent the spread of Covid-19, which experts said could surge after holiday gatherings.
We have been supportive of the protocols the government has enacted, including mask wearing, as measures designed to remind us of the risks of infection and therefore to help limit the spread of the illness.
However, we have also been extremely concerned about the adverse economic effects of restrictive quarantines. Looking at the overall global data, it is difficult to see a direct—and sometimes even indirect—correlation between cases and quarantine.
A few months ago, the headlines read: “How South Korea Successfully Managed Coronavirus.” Now it’s “Coronavirus: Success stories Japan and South Korea start to struggle” and “Japan battered by Covid-19 winter: expands state of emergency.” From 100 new cases a day on October 1 in Malaysia, “Covid-19 infections hit a new record high just two days [January 12] into the new movement control order, with the health ministry reporting 3,337 cases.”
Two months ago, local pundits were complaining, “Why can’t the Philippines be like Indonesia?” Last Friday, January 15, Indonesia was No. 13 on the list of “The Most New Cases” while the Philippines was No. 39. The argument that this is because of low testing in the Philippines does not hold water either. Per 1 million population, Indonesia has tested 29,832. The Philippines has tested 65,505. Japan’s testing rate is 45,293 per 1 million and is No. 22 globally in new cases.
Comparing successes or failures from lockdowns is also difficult. The Philippines, for example, shut down the NCR totally and then has gradually reopened. Other nations, like the United Kingdom, did the “open-close-open-close” child’s game with their lockdown. Quarantines in the US are the function of local governments, not the national government. Therefore, literally walking across a state border could mean going from “total lockdown” to “no-lockdown.”
Trying to find any sort of complete, unbiased, recent, and “apples-to-apples” data comparisons on quarantine effectiveness is almost impossible. But it is interesting to look at how the beliefs about handling a new virus have massively shifted. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, mainstream epidemiology and public health entities doubted—or even rejected—the usefulness of lockdowns and mass quarantines because they were considered ineffective.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in March 2020: “I can’t imagine shutting down New York or Los Angeles because historically when you shut things down it doesn’t have a major effect.” A World Health Organization Report in 2019 discussed why quarantine is ineffective; and in 2006, “WHO acknowledges social-distancing did not stop or dramatically reduce transmission during the 1918 influenza pandemic.”
Seton Hall University’s Center for Global Health Studies Director says travel restrictions did not delay the transmission of SARS (2009). In the Biosecurity and Bioterrorism journal, Johns Hopkins epidemiologists rejected quarantines outright (2006). “As experience shows, there is no basis for recommending quarantine either of groups or individuals.”
In September 2019, a team of Johns Hopkins scholars wrote that quarantines do not work “but are pursued for political reasons.”
Unlike the local pundits and experts, we do not pretend to have all the answers. But we can say this with absolute confidence. The Philippine economy contracted by 16 percent in the second quarter of 2020 and by 11 percent in the third quarter under strict quarantine. The nation cannot afford that kind of economic contraction to happen again.