Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion pushes to gradually remove the quarantine restrictions in the country once the Omicron variant “subsides.”
Concepcion, in a Go Negosyo forum, cited Thailand and Switzerland. The two countries started opening their borders and removing their quarantine policies.
He said he would suggest to the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases to shift from facility-based quarantine to a home-based quarantine. Concepcion believes the quarantine rules did not prevent the spread of variants such as Delta and Omicron.
“We’re not suggesting that we implement the no quarantine immediately. What I’m proposing to our IATF members is a gradual move towards the removal of quarantine in the Philippines and moving towards home-based rather than facility-based quarantine,” Concepcion said.
“My own view is that it has not actually helped us from preventing Delta or Omicron from entering the country. You can see in two-weeks time, Omicron has swamped NCR and basically, if we look at the positivity rate in the Philippines and America, it’s about the same,” he added.
He believes the Philippines could not continue “locking” itself and restricting the movement of the people.
Gradual elimination of COVID-19 quarantine pushed
“That is something that we are looking to discuss more with key people in IATF… let’s plan so that as we plan last year to save the fourth quarter… as we see Omicron start to subside, then maybe we can move towards a gradual phase out of our quarantine in the country,” he said.
Concepcion also cited the more lax rules of people going to the United States.
“Looking at things here where I am now and seeing people are coping with COVID-19 in America specifically in the bay area, I’ve noticed that basically everybody is wearing masks, they are definitely conscious about the need to prevent themselves from getting sick but they live a normal life, there’s a lot of movement and people have accepted that,” Concepcion shared.
“I’ve been sharing this with a couple of medical advisers at the government on the approach and coming to America, you basically just need an antigen test within 24 hours prior to your departure out of Manila so that’s not very hard to do. I thought it’s a good way because in our case when we leave America, we’re required to take an RT-PCR test, 48 hours prior to departure, so that’s a bit of concern because the RT-PCR testing capacity here is at max,” he added.
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