Interior Secretary Eduardo Año on Friday expressed confidence the number of COVID-19 infections would go down during the 15-day modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) in the greater Metro Manila area.
At the sidelines of an event in Camp Crame, Año said he hoped the MECQ would not be extended in Metro Manila, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal beyond August 18 for the sake of the country's economy.
“I really hope it won’t be extended because we want to reopen our economy and strike a balance between health and economy. We will look at the figures, but I am optimistic that with the 15-day MECQ, it will go down. We just need to follow the rules and not be stubborn," he added.
This developed as Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, the country’s coronavirus contact tracing czar, said local governments must do more than just set up testing facilities for COVID-19 patients.
Magalong said aggressive contact tracing is also important in the fight against the pandemic, and the active involvement of local chief executives (LCEs) is critical to this.
Less than 1 percent of the 600 LGUs that responded to the government’s online diagnostic test were found to have good contact tracing systems, he revealed.
“LCEs are just realizing this now, because they have been focused on their test facilities, quarantine and isolation and relief operations, but they are forgetting that contact tracing is this important,” Magalong told ABS-CBN's TeleRadyo.
“Unfortunately, out of the 1,800 [LGUs polled], 614 responded and it revealed that just 0.68 [percent] have good contact tracing. After 1 month — this is our 3rd week – we will just finish our 4th week, and then we will have another diagnostic test,” he said.
Assuming the positivity rate for Metro Manila is 10 percent, Magalong said the 2,500 cases in 10 days, multiplied by 10 percent, will lead to 250 potentially infected people roaming around and unaccounted for.
He said having comprehensive and accurate information in the database system remains a challenge to the Department of Health.
“Even I am frustrated, but the good thing is (Health) Sec. (Francisco) Duque has admitted there is a great lack of contact tracing and they are fixing it,” he said.
Metro Manila and the four nearby provinces were reverted to the MECQ from August 4 to 18 after two months under a general community quarantine, after medical frontliners sought help from the government for a timeout following a surge in the number of infections to nearly 120,000.