No more lockdowns'

Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno. PHOTO BY J. GERARD SEGUIA

By Catherine S. Valente  and Red Mendoza, Manila Times

THE Covid-19 positivity rate in the National Capital Region (NCR) has jumped to 9.3 percent, almost double the ideal positivity rate of 5 percent set by the World Health Organization (WHO), but the government is unlikely to implement community lockdowns despite the sharp rise in cases.

The country's positivity rate also increased to 6.8 percent in the week of June 28 to July 3.

Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno on Wednesday said that lockdowns are no longer needed because the majority of Filipinos have been inoculated against Covid-19.

"I think no country now, except China, will go into general lockdowns. I think we have now graduated from being pandemic to endemic," Diokno said when asked if the Marcos economic team will adopt the previous administration's policy of not imposing any wide lockdowns.

"We have to live with the virus. Most of us are vaccinated anyway, some of us even have boosters. In fact, that (vaccination) is also key to the 100 percent opening or face-to-face opening of classes. The plan is, it will start opening up by August and then 100 percent by November," he added.

On Wednesday, the Department of Health (DoH) said that Cordillera, Central Luzon, Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon), Mimaropa (Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan) and Western Visayas regions also had positivity rates above the 5 percent threshold set by the WHO.

The department, however, said that health care utilization rates remained low, with a 19 percent total bed utilization rate despite an increase in admissions by around 6.7 percent.

The average daily reported cases increased by 55 percent from June 21 to 27 to 1,103 cases per day across the country, as compared to 711 cases reported from June 21 to 27.

In NCR, cases increased by 57 percent to an average of 537 cases per day from June 28 to July 4, while Mindanao provinces have shown a slight uptick.