₱30 Billions Of Household Income Will Be Lost Due To Two-Week ECQ

Written by Marc Adrian

The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) has estimated that billions of pesos in household income and hundreds of thousands of job losses will result from the two-week enhanced community quarantine in NCR Plus.

In its statement, NEDA said that the extended ECQ will have a negative impact on the majority of people, resulting in some 252,000 more individuals without jobs and 102,000 more poor individuals. It also said that the more stringent quarantine in NCR Plus translates to a daily household income loss of ₱1 billion or almost ₱30 billion for the two-week period.

The NEDA also added that the government should take advantage of the extended ECQ in NCR Plus to intensify the implementation of the Prevent, Detect, Isolate, Treat, and Recover (PDITR) strategy “be more effective in reducing COVID-19 cases. It explained that ECQ alone does not reduce the spike in the COVID-19 cases.

Acting Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua said that further enhancing the implementation of the PDITR strategy with clear targets to achieve will help reduce the spike in COVID-19 cases given the new variants. He cited how the PDITR strategy worked between August 2020 and February 2021 when the country was able to reduce cases to below 2,000 per day, which allowed for the gradual opening of the economy. With the new variants, the implementation of the PDITR strategy should be further intensified.

Chua further added that on the part of the government, the following key interventions should be pursued: first, increase and improve the health systems capacity; second, improve the communication strategy; third, accelerate vaccine deployment for the vulnerable sectors; and lastly, ensure that all sectors are equipped with the skills to transition to the new normal. 

Chua explained that with more stringent quarantine standards during the ECQ period, the country stands to benefit from its low number of cases and deaths from COVID-19.  He expounded by citing how between March 31 to May 15, 2021, an additional week of ECQ is estimated to help avert 215,320 cases, of which 6,460 are severe and critical, which will also prevent 4,026 COVID-19 deaths.

Upgrading the country’s health systems capacity this time, where testing and isolation are intensified, the country would reap greater benefits as additional 323,262 COVID-19 cases may be averted, 9,698 of which are severe and critical, and at the same time preventing 6,045 deaths from COVID-19, the secretary added. 

 

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