“New Normal” Removed, Technical Working Group Formed, Cebu City concerns and Other Highlights of IATF Resolution No. 48

DENR Secretary and former General, Roy Cimatu has been appointed to oversee COVID-19 government response in Cebu. He is to be assisted by DOH, DILG and the National Task Force. His marching orders from President Dutere is “Talunin ang COVID-19 sa siyudad ng Cebu. (Defeat COVID-19 in the City of Cebu.)”

Overseas Filipino from Sabah will be handled by a Task Force headed by DOH, DSWD, OWWA, and Bureau of Quarantine. Zamboanga City will be processing area, starting June 30, 2020.

There are 113 Localized Lockdowns in the whole country.

43,750 RT-PCR kits arrived for 1,050,000 tests.

16 awarded bids, 239,857 test kits procured. Approximately 8,544,282 tests can be performed using these procured test kits. There are 5 ongoing bids, for 15,750 test kits to use for 1,293,750 tests.

As of June 20, 594,817 tests have been conducted. Testing capacity goal of 50,000, as of March 2020, 1,000 tests per day is the testing capacity. There are 63 laboratories licensed to carry out tests, with 27 in NCR.

The Social Amelioration Program Report had 496 complaints, 728 suspects, 264 cases, 157 filed with Public Prosecutors Office, 61 under investigation, 153 barangay captains, 5 Sanggunian Barangays, 20 Barangay Captains demanded with Ombudsman. 2nd Tranche of SAP hoped to be finished within the week.

Recalibration of Current Parameters , specifically Case Doubling Time (CDT) and Critical Care Utilization (CCDU) and area classifications.

For High Risk Classification – ECQ or MECQ,

Moderate Risk Classification – GCQ or MGCQ

Low-Risk Classification – MGCQ

Therefore there will be no “New Normal” yet.

There are modifiers, present in MECQ and MGCQ that include Social, economic, and security factors, Clustering of cases, Health syststems capacity, Continuous trend or increasing/decreasing new cases, CUR, CDT, among others.

Updated Methodology for LGU appeals , required information for submission:

a. Daily trend of active cases, number, percent of population

b. Percent of close contacts traced, percent of contacts in quarantine

c. Number and utilization of community isolation beds

e. COVID Special Teams investigations and results

f. Priority areas for segmental lockdown

5 basic reporting parameters to streamline the reporting of the national epidemiological picture

National daily number of cases adjusted for date of report including the 7-day moving average
National daily number of cases around the country
Association of number of daily tests and daily positivity rate
Time-varying reproduction number (Rr)
COVID-19 deaths over time

A Sub-Technical Working Group (TWG) is formed to study and address the management of foreign nationals who will be allowed to enter the Philippines for specific purposes. Right now only Filipinos, their spouses, and diplomats are allowed entry into the Philippines.

Dine-in food establishment industries allowed to operate up to 9:00PM, as curfew was moved later to 10PM to 5AM. (Note applicable for ECQ/MECQ areas)

Current immediate concerns to address:

For Cebu City

Lack of Medical Personnel and Staffs in the different Major Hospitals (Being addressed by DOH-7)
Increasing sever and critical cases which greatly affected the healthcare capacity of Cebu City
Need to increase the capacity of Cebu City and Cebu Province while on ECQ/MECQ — refers to Talisay City
Need to organize NTF Response Group in Cebu City to strictly enforce the quarantine protocls (Cabinet Members)