The group of traders and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), and the Department of Agriculture (DA) opposed any lockdown.
It is said that this will have a big impact not only on the consumer but also on the workers of the closing business.
The Employers’ Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) and the Philippine Chamber of Commerce insisted that they were not in favor of the two-week lockdown.
“Sige mag-lockdown tayo, mamatay tayong lahat sa gutom… We have to live with it, we have to balance it,” said ECOP president Sergio Ortiz Luis.
DTI Secretary Ramon Lopez and DA Secretary William Dar will block the lockdown proposals as much as they can.
“Ang balanse dito is we allow strict granular lockdown where needed, granular hindi massive para to allow other parts of the economy to operate to work, ‘yung mga trabaho, naku, an’daming maghihirap kapag nagka-lockdown,” said Lopez.
For OCTA Research, more intervention is needed actually to prevent the spread of the Delta variant.
DTI, DA, traders oppose new lockdown vs. Delta variant
OCTA Research fellow Guido David explained to Teleradyo that the GCQ with heightened restrictions has not been able to stop the increase in COVID-19 cases.
Although it is not that high yet, he said the reproduction number of Metro Manila, which is already 1.35, is disturbing.
He also said that this is where the reproduction number of Cebu City started last two weeks.
But now they are at 2, and the level of their cases continues to rise.
For David, another type of lockdown can be implemented as long as the spread of the Delta variant is prevented.
Meanwhile, nearly 100 Delta variant cases have been recorded in the Philippines through the country’s ongoing biosurveillance.
This is after the Department of Health (DOH), University of the Philippines-Philippine Genome Center (UP-PGC), and UP National Institutes of Health (UP-NIH) reported their new batch of whole genome sequencing results.
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