Daily virus cases in Metro Manila and its surrounding provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal have reportedly been declining after they were placed under enhanced community quarantine from March 29 to April 11, and then under modified ECQ from April 12, which will last until May 14.
But the OCTA Research Group identified other areas where cases are spiking, including Cagayan de Oro City, Puerto Princesa, Zamboanga City and Bacolod City.
Calamba experienced a 21 percent spike in cases despite Laguna being part of the NCR Plus bubble.
OCTA’s data analysis showed that Puerto Princesa had a 78 percent spike in cases. This, even after some of its barangays were put under a localized lockdown.
This should be of utmost concern to the national government. If Metro Manila’s hospitals can be overwhelmed by Covid surges, then the poorer healthcare capacities of far-flung provinces make them more vulnerable.
OCTA has yet to determine the cause of the spike in these areas, but the problems in our Covid protocols have always been the same, even before the vaccination of our citizens began.
First, we still don’t have a single nationwide contact tracing system that could effectively monitor Covid cases. The ability to track and trace new infections has always been critical for mitigating Covid spikes, and it will be critical for any strategy to reopen the country.
Second, there have always been problems concerning the accuracy of the government’s Covid testing, in particular, too many false results that led to Covid infections in provinces and municipalities where there used to be none or where Covid cases were minimal. What good are tests if the results are not reliable?
Then the government has also been having problems with the proliferation of fake negative Covid test results, which certainly led to more infections.
Third, our border controls have always been loosely enforced. Protocols are useless and cannot prevent the transmission of the virus if there are exemptions, if there are certain people who can slip past borders and skip lockdown rules and quarantine restrictions.
For instance, government officials and personnel on official business have been allowed by the IATF to travel without undergoing the mandatory testing and quarantine protocols.
Why!? A government official on official business is not exempted from Covid infection! The virus knows no ranks and it infects everyone.
We have been reporting that many government offices have gone on lockdown because of infections among their employees and officials.
Ilocos Sur Gov. Ryan Singson, for instance, blamed a recent gathering held at a government office in Metro Manila for the spike in Covid cases in some Ilocos provinces.
He said some employees of the National Tobacco Administration in Candon City attended the NTA’s First Quarter Convocation in the agency’s main office in Quezon City in March.
One of the NTA employees who attended the event—which included a half-day celebration of fellowship due to the birthday of Robert Seares, the NTA administrator—later tested positive for Covid. This employee then infected a coworker from Sta. Lucia, Ilocos Sur.
In Ilocos Norte, one of three employees of the NTA in Batac City who attended the event also tested positive for Covid. She then infected at least 11 other people in Batac. The governor was wondering how the NTA officials were able to attend the gathering in Metro Manila despite the strict health protocols in place and the “emergency shielding” he had previously imposed, which banned travel to and from NCR Plus.
Well, perhaps the IATF exemption for government officials on official business was used—and abused—yet again.
We should all be reminded that NCR Plus is not the Philippines. The virus knows no borders. For as long as there is a Covid surge anywhere in the country it magnifies the likelihood of the virus spiraling out of control again.
The government’s containment strategy could never be considered effective if there is a surge of infections in any province or city or locality.
As the World Health Organization said, the Philippines did not have a second wave of Covid infections, because it did not even stop the first wave, it did not even flatten the curve.
Our target as a nation should be zero confirmed cases and no deaths. We need to stop the transmission of Covid-19 in the entire country, to make the Philippines a so-called bubble, in the same manner as Taiwan, for instance.
Only then can we ever consider our domestic containment measures successful.