IATF: Quarantine prevented situation where millions could be infected with COVID-19

The imposition of the enhanced community quarantine in Luzon has prevented the country from being in a worst case scenario of having one to eight million Filipinos infected with COVID-19, Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said Tuesday.

Nograles, also the spokesperson of Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases, made the response following Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez’s comments that as much as 100,000 lives were saved as a result of the enhanced community quarantine which banned  mass transport and prohibited mass gathering, and stopped work in many industries.

“May iba’t ibang scientists, epidemiologists na nagbigay sa ating ng statistics sa possible peak kung hindi tayo mag-enhanced community quarantine.’Yung isang estimate, ang sabi nila maaaring potential peak is 1.9 million Filipinos infected ng COVID-19. ‘Yung isang estimate, sinabi aabot tayo ng 5.2 million. ‘Yung isa, sinabi aabot tayo ng 6.2  million, at iyong isa, sinabi 8.3 million. Ganun po, kaya nabanggit ni Secretary Dominguez kung hindi agad nag-lockdown we could have lost more than 100,000 Filipino lives,” Nograles said in a press conference.

“Kung yan ang sinasabi ng mga eksperto sa amin at kay Pangulong Duterte, doon po yun, ‘yun po ang iniiwasan natin. ‘Yun po ang estimates nila, hindi namin. Mula po yan sa mga eksperto. Kung hindi tayo gagawa ng hakbang, ganun ang mangyayari, base sa iba’t-ibang scientists,” Nograles added.

Luzon has been under enhanced community quarantine since March 16 to prevent COVID-19 transmission. It was supposed to end on April 12, but was extended to April 30 to give the government more time to establish facilities to exclusively treat confirmed and suspected COVID-19 cases as well as more laboratories for the conduct of mass testing.

The government is expected to conduct as much as 10,000 COVID-19 tests per day by April 27 or three days before the expected end of the enhanced community quarantine.

Based on the records of the National Action Plan on COVID-19 Task Force led by Secretary Carlito Galvez, the country has at least 15 COVID-19 testing facilities and 2,673 quarantine facilities with a bed capacity of 165,756 across the country thus far.

The Philippines has recorded 4,932 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of 4 pm of April 13. Of this number, 315 have died while 242 others recovered. — RSJ, GMA News