"Each of us is accountable for our own health and well-being."
"Each of us is accountable for our own health and well-being."
President Rodrigo Duterte will reportedly receive by Friday, April 25, the recommendation of the Inter-Agency Task Force on the COVID-19 crisis on whether to lift or extend the Enhanced Community Quarantine in Luzon.
There’s a strong indication that the IATF would propose another extension of the lockdown based on several factors the panel had listed earlier: The trend in the COVID-19 epidemiological curve, capacity of the healthcare system, social, economic and security factors.
The decision on whether to end or prolong the ECQ rests solely on the President. But it appears that Manong Digong is confronted with the predicament of “damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”
If he lifts the lockdown, he would be blamed for the further spread of novel coronavirus. If he extends the ECQ, he will be blamed for the total collapse of the economy and the suffering of millions of jobless people. Manong Digong alone will have to take the flak.
I beg to disagree with this narrow-minded notion.
I say, with or without a continued lockdown, the responsibility for any eventuality falls upon every one of us, as a result of how much we have cooperated in observing the community quarantine rules since March 16.
The rationale of the ECQ is having each of us doing our part in our own home, strictly observing personal preventive measures against contracting coronavirus.
We don’t need the authorities nor anybody, for that matter, to tell us to wear a face mask when we go out to buy our food and necessities or cover our mouth when we cough or sneeze.
The bottom line is each of us is accountable for our own health and well-being.
Even with another extension of the ECQ, either with relaxed rules or total lockdown, the cases of COVID-19 will continue to increase simply because there are still not enough laboratory testing facilities accessible to the poor people, especially those in remote areas in the Visayas and Mindanao. We have not reached out to explain to them the need to get checked up.
It also important to point out that lockdown by itself will not stop the spread of the virus. In fact, it may have caused its spread in some cases in crowded households, including slums. We need to seek out and isolate the sick, not scare them into lockdown.
The role of the local government units is crucial in that every LGU should be responsible for identifying and issuing through its City Health Officer a “health clearance” to every barangay that is proven COVID-19-free.
That means every barangay’s health officer will have conducted a house-to-house survey and, in case of suspected COVID-19 case, will have performed contact-tracing and conducted quarantine procedures.
The LGUs should, once and for all, strictly enforce the laws and ordinances against smoking in public places, spitting, urination, and waste disposal.
At the workplace, medical checkup and medical clearance should be mandatory.
Work-from-home program should continue to be encouraged in both government and private institutions where applicable and practicable.
While many of us would want an end to the lockdown, we also fear of a full-blown local epidemic of the COVID-19 just like in Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, China, and the United States where hundreds of people die from the dreaded disease each day.
Note that these countries worst-hit by the global pandemic are the countries that continued to allow in travelers and tourists, particularly from China even after the outbreak of the novel-coronavirus in Wuhan City, Hubei Province.
It will be recalled that the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country were those of Chinese tourists who had traveled from Wuhan.
That is why we should continue the travel ban of foreigners into the country unless each of them can be subjected to an “onsite rapid testing” for COVID-19 upon arrival at the airport.
Likewise, Filipino citizens should be prohibited from going to countries affected by the pandemic.
Last but not the least, an updated Health Education including the subject of Infectious Diseases should be incorporated in the primary and secondary education.