After the medical community’s call for Mega Manila to revert back to a stricter enhanced community quarantine, President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) to reconsider the frontliners’ recommendation, Malacañang said on Saturday.
“President Rodrigo Roa Duterte has heard the concerns of the medical community and the Chief Executive has directed the Inter-Agency Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases to act on these concerns immediately,” Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said in a press statement.
On Friday, Duterte placed Metro Manila under general community quarantine (GCQ) until August 15. Duterte’s announcement came despite Malacañang’s repeated statements that Metro Manila might be placed once again under ECQ, the strictest quarantine classification.
Several medical societies experiencing the COVID-19 battle firsthand have asked Duterte to consider their appeal to implement ECQ in Metro Manila from August 1 to 15.
Dr. Mario Panaligan, president of the Philippine College of Physicians, appealed for the reimposition of ECQ in Metro Manila, saying the medical professionals are already “tired.”
“We propose that the two-week ECQ be used as a time out to refine our pandemic control strategies,” Panaligan said in an August 1 letter signed by several other health organizations.
