Sunday Essay: Closing, testing

Sunday Essay cartoon by Gilbert Manantan
Sunday Essay cartoon by Gilbert Manantan

THERE is no such thing as back to normal, as far as the COVID-19 pandemic is concerned. There is no going back to the way things used to be. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Until last week, however, it was possible to imagine that some form of normalcy would resume by the close of April.

As of Friday, the terms of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in Cebu City had not changed: the stay-at-home order may still be lifted by April 28 and more people would then be allowed to report back to work, or at least move about with fewer restrictions. It would not be surprising if companies were required to keep a good portion of their staff still working from home.

Last week, though, the rising number of confirmed cases, particularly in Sitio Zapatera, Barangay Luz, compelled local officials around Cebu City, including the Provincial Government, to decide to tighten border controls further.

This is not a surprising response. Businesses and workers who used to be exempted from the stay-at-home order will no longer be exempted, starting Tuesday this week. That list includes food manufacturers and business process outsourcing companies.

With Sitio Zapatera’s ordeal, it finally dawned on more of our local officials that the novel coronavirus had already been spreading within our communities. We just didn’t know how fast it was spreading and whom it had already infected because not enough tests were being done.

As panicky as these rising numbers make some of us, more testing is the right thing to do. What’s wrong is to accept, without question, the view that completely shutting down the economy is the only option. That it’s a choice between killing the economy or letting more people die.

The Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Romer has recommended, for example, repeatedly testing as many people as possible who aren’t infected—then letting those who test negative go back to work, move about, get the economy going again. A MIT Technology Review article captures how exasperated Romer is that there is much “learned helplessness, so much hand-wringing.” People who test negative can be given a card or some other proof that they can travel and go back to work, provided they are tested at least once every two weeks.

Can our government round up the resources to make such an arrangement possible? Here’s hoping.

In the meantime, our local public sector leaders deserve our support and understanding. Their responses haven’t always been coordinated—with each city adopting different rules, issuing different exemptions and requiring different passes and permits from others. But we understand they are doing their best in the face of a challenge for which no playbook exists—where tough decisions often have to be made using incomplete or rapidly changing information.

Yet while containment is necessary now, it is not likely to be sustainable.

Locking down an entire community, like Sitio Zapatera in Cebu City’s Barangay Luz, will exact a toll on health (public, economic and mental) that our leaders, especially in the public sector, need to be ready to address.

The big question is how soon massive and repeated testing can be made available in the Philippines, especially for populations that are at risk.

More of us would more quickly make our peace with containment, with giving up our ability to move safely from home to work and back, if our leaders came up with a clearer plan for making affordable and accurate tests available to more persons soon. It would not be wise to attempt to restart the economy unless widespread testing was already available. That, in the American economist Romer’s words, would be “magical thinking.”

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