The government will soon be phasing out the large-scale community quarantine classification and replace it with granular lockdowns.
In a television interview on Thursday, the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) announced the measure was already approved by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF).
The recommendation was backed by the Department of Health (DOH), National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), and health experts.
“We will no longer have large-scale lockdowns in the level of regions and provinces,” Interior Undersecretary Epimaco Densing III.
Instead, he said local government units (LGU) will still implement localized granular lockdowns within their jurisdictions.
“The national government will just help local government [units] to meet their needs when it comes to food [aid] in areas, which will be placed under lockdown,” Densing said.
He noted the new scheme will be better than the current community quarantine classification system, wherein there are still Authorized Persons Outside of Residence (APOR).
Under the community quarantine classification system, an area is placed under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), modified ECQ (MECQ), general community quarantine (GCQ), and modified GCQ, depending on several factors, which includes health care utilization rate and daily attack rate.
“In granular lockdowns, once you place a subdivision, or some houses under lockdown, no one will be allowed outside of the area,” Densing said.
The national government has been cautious in placing parts of the country under lockdown through a enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) declaration due to its harmful effects to businesses and since it costs a large sum of taxpayers money since the people affected will be given cash aid.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque confirmed that the IATF already approved in principle the granular lockdown scheme.
He said the IATF is now ironing out the details of the new scheme, which must also be approved by President Rodrigo R. Duterte before it could be implemented.