Concepcion taps health, economic experts as advisory group to guide private sector

Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion said he has tapped health and economic experts as an advisory group to guide the private sector as the country moves to normalcy after battling the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an interview with GTV’s Balitanghali on Friday, Concepcion said he will have a meeting with the experts in the field of medicine, research, and economy  to discuss their advice to the private sector in shifting to normalcy.

Among the experts are infectious disease expert Dr. Rontgene Solante, National Task Force (NTF) Against COVID-19 adviser Dr. Teodoro "Ted" Herbosa,  DOH Technical Advisory Group member Edsel Salvana, and OCTA research fellows Dr. Michael Tee, Dr. Guido David and Fr. Nic Austriaco, and economist Romy Bernardo.

“So these doctors and data analysts will meet this afternoon and align [their] message and of course their advice to the private sector as well. We are facing these price increases and we want to make sure yung alert levels natin will continue to be where it is,” he said.

“And hopefully, ang isang recommendation naming is eventually setting it aside but what are the parameters that will happen before we totally remove alert levels so those are the things we will be discussing,” he added.

Concepcion also said there is a need to discuss the process of transitioning out to a public state of emergency.

“How do we transition out from the public state of health emergency, we cannot be forever in the public state of emergency, how do we shift now to the removal of that? It will take time,” he said.

“We have to start thinking along the line of preparing the move from pandemic to endemic. So it's not overnight that you can say okay tanggalin na natin ang public state emergency hindi ganyan, so it is a process and we have to start discussing that,” he added.

President Rodrigo Duterte earlier extended the state of calamity until September 12, 2022 in the country due to the continued rise in cases and the threat of coronavirus variants. — RSJ, GMA News