Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion said Monday the country may move out from the alert level system around March or April this year as part of its “exit plan” from the pandemic.
Concepcion said the private sector will be coming up with a plan to ensure safe reopening of the economy despite the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.
“The idea is to reach a point wherein there are no more alert levels,” he said during the Laging Handa public briefing. “I think we will eventually get there. I think by March, sometime that period, or maybe April, we will be ready to move out from alert levels.”
He said that in the past 22 months of being in a pandemic, both businesses and consumers have embraced basic protocols such as wearing of face masks, sanitizing, physical distancing, and isolation when symptoms are present.
“We have to revive these sectors that have been closed for the past 22 months,” Concepcion added.
During the press briefing of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua said the proposal of the private sector is a “very good idea”, and the government commits to study this recommendation.
Although Chua agreed that the country should begin a paradigm shift from pandemic to a more endemic mindset, the current alert level system should be retained as “we are not yet fully out of the pandemic”.
“For the time being since we are not yet fully out of the pandemic, this is something that I think we should presently retain: I think we have proven the alert level system works by prioritizing or managing the risk at the sources of highest risk and allowing the rest of the people to move around safely and go back to work,” he said.
Earlier, Concepcion and OCTA Research Fellow Fr. Nicanor Austriaco proposed to the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) and the National Task Force Against Covid-19 (NTF) to begin the government’s exit plan from the pandemic.
“It is time for the national government to transition our people from a pandemic to an endemic mindset,” they said in a letter to IATF and NTF.
Concepcion also highlighted the critical role of Covid-19 vaccines, including booster shots, to provide protection for Filipinos against the infection.
He added the private sector is doing its part on vaccination campaigns by inoculating workers and their household members, and by also giving booster shots.
The private sector also donated some of the Covid-19 vaccines it purchased for local government units in need of the jabs.
“We have to realize that we have to move on,” he said.
Source: Philippines News Agency
