The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that any plans to ease quarantine restrictions should be carried out gradually to prevent a likely resurgence of infections as President Rodrigo Duterte weighed whether to lift, extend or loosen the lockdown he imposed on Luzon nearly two months ago to halt the spread the new coronavirus in the Philippines.
According to Dr. Takeshi Kasai, the WHO Western Pacific regional director, the lockdowns and other stringent measures have been “proven to be effective in slowing down and reducing the transmission” of SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19, which has downed 2.46 million people globally and killed 169,863 of them as of Tuesday.
But Kasai on Tuesday acknowledged that the restrictions had upended millions of lives and had had a major impact on economies that governments are now deciding how best to remove them without rolling back their gains in trying to suppress the contagion.
Public health principles
He noted that while there was no one-size-fits-all solution to this issue, the WHO strongly urged governments to make decisions guided by public health principles and that any easing of measures should be gradually done.
“If restrictions are relaxed too soon before a strong system is in place to identify, isolate, care for the sick and trace their contacts, this will likely lead to a resurgence of the disease,” Kasai said in an online press conference.
“The important key principles are: [decisions] should be based on data and public health principles, the lifting [of the lockdown] should be gradual and in a phased manner, and individual interventions should be addressed in a risk-based manner by checking its effectiveness depending on the cultural context,” he added.
As of Monday, the Western Pacific region, home to 22 countries including the Philippines, had 132,438 confirmed coronavirus cases. It accounted for nearly 5 percent of all fatalities, or 5,648 patients.
Within the week, Duterte is expected to decide whether to prolong the Luzon lockdown or enforce it only in parts of the island where there is active transmission of the virus.
“This is not the time to be lax. Instead, we need to ready ourselves for a new way of living in the foreseeable future,” Kasai said. “As we move forward in this difficult time, our lives, our health system and approach to stopping transmission must continue to adapt and evolve along with the epidemic, at least until a vaccine or very effective treatment is found,” he added.
There are currently more than 70 candidate vaccines, of which three are in the first phase of clinical trials while one is in the second phase, the WHO said.
No country is safe“As long as the new coronavirus is circulating, no country is safe from potentially overwhelming outbreaks. We can only get out of this together,” Kasai said.
“Citizens should accept the responsibility of protecting themselves, their family and community through social distancing, frequent hand washing and staying at home. The private sector should also adopt new ways of working from home and other measures to reduce infection in the workplace,” he added.
Asked what industries might be allowed to reopen without causing a second wave of infection, Kasai said such businesses included those with low concentration of contact as well as those that could modify their operations to minimize risk of infection.
“What is important is to have a system where we could monitor whether we’re lifting [the measures] in the right way or would need to bring back certain interventions,” he said.
Some Asian and European governments have gradually eased or started relaxing lockdown measures like quarantines, school and business closures and restrictions on public gatherings, citing a decline in the growth coronavirus case counts and deaths.
Courtesy: Daily Inquirer, Philippine
