High-risk areas to be placed under 'granular lockdowns,' not stricter quarantine —Galvez

Secretary Carlito Galvez, chief implementer of the government's response against COVID-19, said "granular lockdowns," not stricter quarantine, will be implemented in high-risk areas.

At a Palace briefing on Thursday, Galvez made the statement after the OCTA Research team advised to implement stricter quarantine classification in 11 areas in the country, including those considered as high-risk.

“Ang ginagawa po natin granular (lockdown),” Galvez said when asked if the 11 recommended areas will be placed under stricter quarantine status like enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).

“’Yung malakihang ECQ is not sustainable. Nakita namin ‘yung presentation ng NEDA na napakalaki ng epekto kapag ginawa natin ‘yung draconic lockdown,” he added.

According to him, the granular lockdown will be complemented with syndromic surveillance, which includes finding COVID-19 cases among the close contacts of infected persons.

In an October 6 report, the OCTA Research team advised the government to implement stricter quarantine classifications in 11 areas, based on the data from August 25 to October 5.

Nine areas are considered high-risk because their daily attack rate per 1000 is greater than 1.0% and their attack rate for the current week is also higher compared to both of the two previous weeks.

According to OCTA Research team, the following are the high-risk areas for COVID-19 that the government should consider placing under stricter quarantine:

• Benguet (including Baguio City)
• Davao Del Sur (including Davao City),
• Iloilo (including Iloilo City)
• Misamis Oriental (including Cagayan de Oro)
• Nueva   Ecija
• Quezon
• Pangasinan (including Dagupan)
• Western Samar
• Zamboanga Del Sur (including Zamboanga City)

Although being considered as low-risk for COVID-19, the experts also recommended Cagayan and Isabela for stricter quarantine classifications due to limited healthcare capacity. -MDM, GMA News