Limiting lockdowns

EDITORIAL

Lockdowns involving wider areas don’t guarantee effective containment of the Covid virus as cases are increasing despite this.Officials have shut down business establishments, restricted movement of many people, including workers who still have jobs and generally interrupted the economy which led to hardship and starvation among families.
    But it failed to curb the spread of the virus because nothing was done to pinpoint and isolate clusters of Covid-19 cases in many areas, according experts and observers. An Ateneo professor said health and economic policies should go hand in hand in addressing the pandemic.
    Widespread lockdown is like aiming a gun at a general direction without hitting the intended target. As a result, Covid-19 cases have been rising as hotspots are not being isolated from the rest of the village, city, or province.
    Authorities are now leaning toward proposals to replace city- or province-wide community quarantine levels with granular two-week lockdowns.
    In Manila, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority is considering this after a widespread lockdown in the capital region. MMDA chairman Benjamin Abalos Jr., a hard lockdown should always be the last option.
    Neighborhood or granular lockdowns are not new. Abalos said 3,040 households in Metro Manila are currently under granular lockdowns. The same isolated lockdowns are being implemented in some towns of Pangasinan, Pampanga, and Bulacan, Ilocos, Cagayan Valley and Cordillera municipalities
    President Rodrigo Duterteis now reportedly considering a shift from city or province-wide quarantines to localized lockdowns. He has conceded the government may calibrate its response to rising infections and directed the National Task Force Against Covid-19 to study benefits of implementing localized lockdowns nationwide.
    Granular lockdowns will task local government units down to the barangay level to track and isolate clusters in their respective areas. This involves strictly enforcing health protocols and prevent super spreader events.
    Observers are saying government officials should be made accountable for the rise of Covid-19 cases. They say it’s about time LGUs acted and owned up to their poor performance in containing the virus spread.
    But then again, there is the IATF or Interagency Task Force on Covid Response which is dictating to LGUs rules on how to contain Covid-19 and its variants.
    It is high time IATF officials, mostly retired military or police generals should be replaced with more competent ones like experts in the field of medicine or science.