MANILA – The Philippines is set to further ease quarantine restrictions next month, even as experts report a slight uptick in Covid-19 cases in the capital, officials uncover more infectious coronavirus variants and the vaccination programme flounders.

A task force overseeing the government’s efforts to combat Covid-19 has advised President Rodrigo Duterte to place the entire country under a “modified general community quarantine”, removing many of the restrictions that have been in place since a sweeping three-month lockdown early last year.

That means allowing more people in churches, gyms, conference halls, and Internet and gaming arcades.

Cinemas can reopen, concerts may be staged again, and more workers can go back to their offices.

Local governments may also choose to lift rules requiring travellers to have themselves tested for Covid-19.

“I think we’re ready because after one year, we have kept our infection rate manageable, which means it does not overwhelm the healthcare system,” Health Secretary Francisco Duque told CNN Philippines on Monday (Feb 22).

He said the decision to further relax curbs meant to contain the spread of the coronavirus was intended to revive 95 per cent of the economy.

“If we continue strict restrictions, the damage to the economy will be irreversible. We have to balance health and livelihood,” he said.

But public health experts said it might be too early to relax curbs, as Metro Manila has been seeing more Covid-19 infections.

The University of the Philippines-based Octa Research Group on Sunday warned that Metro Manila could see infections rise to 2,400 a day if restrictions were lifted prematurely.

“It is too early at this point. New variants (of the virus have been) detected, and we don’t know yet the extent of (their) presence, (while) our cases have not gone down to less than 1,000 (daily),” Dr Rontgene Solante, an infectious disease expert at the San Lazaro Hospital in Manila, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

The Health Ministry on Sunday reported 18 more cases of the more transmissible and potentially more lethal British variant, bringing the total to 62.

A city in Metro Manila with a population of close to 500,000, meanwhile, has placed over 30 districts on hard lockdown as it saw Covid-19 infections surge threefold last week.

But Mr Harry Roque, Mr Duterte’s spokesman, said in a news briefing on Monday that local governments had already learnt how to contain surges by imposing localised lockdowns, and that the public health system had enough hospital beds available in case infections continue to rise.

“True, cases could still rise, but we’re ready for that,” he said.

He added that, despite delays, the Philippines could soon start vaccinating its healthy population after regulators approved emergency use of a vaccine manufactured by Chinese firm Sinovac.

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The Philippines had been expecting delivery of over 100,000 doses from Pfizer, but that shipment was delayed by a demand from Pfizer for an indemnification law to insulate it from class action suits or government inquiries that could arise from adverse effects with the use of its vaccine.

Sinovac, on the other hand, gave no such requirement, according to Mr Roque.

But with its efficacy rate swinging broadly from 50.4 per cent to 91.2 per cent, officials have said that Sinovac’s vaccine is not recommended for health workers and those who are 60 years old and older.

That complicates the Philippines’ vaccine roll-out, as hospital staff and the elderly are supposed to get inoculated first.

Mr Roque said when the emergency use authorisation is approved, the Philippines is expecting over 600,000 doses of Sinovac’s vaccine to land within days.

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