POPCOM: Physical distancing at home ‘nearly impossible’ for 3.8 M NCR residents amid COVID-19

As families are forced to stay at home amid the enhanced community quarantine due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), around 3.8 million residents in Metro Manila are struggling to exercise physical distancing in cramped living spaces, according to the Commission on Population and Development (POPCOM).

Its database of demographic vulnerabilities showed that 27% of the National Capital Region's 13.9 million population live in 812,584 housing units under 20 square meters (sq.m.).

“With an average number of 4.7 persons in each household, that leaves a living space of only 4.25 sq. m. per person, which makes it nearly impossible to achieve physical distancing,” POPCOM chief Undersecretary Juan Perez III said in a statement.

Perez stressed that the two million poorest residents in the metro live in single-detached houses of less than 20 sq. m.

“In this type of housing, the average number of persons in a household increases to 4.9; therefore, the living space goes down to 4.0 sq. m. per person,” he said.

In these tight living spaces in Metro Manila, 84,276 senior citizens—vulnerable to COVID-19—are residing with other household members.

These information were generated from POPCOM's recently-developed database of demographic vulnerabilities in NCR that would help improve coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) responses at the barangay level.

The database aims to help local government units to execute better pandemic responses.

Perez said that all of the 42,044 barangays nationwide will be covered by the database which will show their vulnerabilities based on living spaces and the number of senior citizens living in COVID-19-susceptible conditions.

POPCOM will be able to complete its analysis for all barangays in the country within the third week of April, he added. — RSJ, GMA News