Activity No.6
Just In!- President Rodrigo R. Duterte put the main Island of Luzon on lockdown on March 16, 2020 due to the health risks of COVID 19. Most of the residents stayed at home while few others went out. Police are starting to arrest hundreds of people for violating curfew, “social distancing”, and quarantine regulations.
While we’ve learned to live with masks and social distancing, as well as new rituals of hand-washing after handling packages and touching surfaces, we need some basic rules to minimize risk and still have a life going forward.
1. Check the health of your state and community
To gauge your risk of coming into contact with an infected person, pay attention to two important indicators of Covid-19 in your area: the percentage of tests that are positive, and the trend in overall case rates.
2. Limit the number of your close contacts
You’re safest with members of your household, but if you want to widen your circle to extended family or friends, keep the number of close contacts as low and as consistent as possible.
3. Manage your exposure budget
Risk is cumulative. Going forward, you’ll need to make trade-offs, choosing activities that are most important to you (like seeing an aging parent) and skipping things that might matter less (an office going-away party). Think about managing virus risk just as you might manage a diet: If you want dessert, eat a little less for dinner.
4. Keep higher risk activities as short as possible
When making decisions, keep indoor events brief and move social events outdoors. Wear a mask and practice social distancing.
5. Keep taking pandemic precautions
Already some people in many communities have stopped wearing masks, suspended social distancing and returned to their pre-pandemic socializing.
Since President Rodrigo Duterte put the main Philippine island of Luzon on lockdown on March 16, 2020, police have arrested hundreds of people in the capital, Manila, and other parts of the country. Most of the arrests are for violating curfew but some are for violating social distancing and quarantine regulations. Other cities and provinces enforced their own lockdowns following Duterte’s action, effectively shutting down the country.
The Philippine government should urgently take steps to ensure further mistreatment does not occur as the authorities tighten their anti-COVID-19 measures over the coming days, Human Rights Watch. . The law places the entire country under a state of emergency for at least three months. The law contains a provision that penalizes, yet does not define, the creation and propagation of false information, opening the door to potential misuse.
Duterte has also announced a COVID-19 national action plan to be led by the military and the police. Arresting people for curfew violations to enforce social distancing related to COVID-19 is counter-productive if police place detainees in crowded detention facilities where the virus could spread easily.