NEDA’s Chua: Change metrics, treat COVID-19 as ‘endemic’

The Philippines’ chief economist is proposing to change the metrics on how the government responds to the COVID-19 crisis by shifting the perspective from being widespread into a more localized one.

“The reality today is that the virus is not going away easily and we will have to live with it for a longer period of time, similar to the flu,” National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) chief and Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua said in his remarks during an Asian Institute of Management virtual forum on Wednesday.

“This means changing our metrics, increasing vaccination, and minimizing severe cases and deaths,” Chua said.

The NEDA chief said, “We need a shift from a pandemic to an endemic paradigm.”

He said that some countries such as Singapore, Portugal, United Kingdom, US, Thailand, and South Korea have already decided to treat COVID-19 as endemic.

He added that globally as more people get vaccinated, death rates fall despite cyclical case surges.

The same trend is expected to be seen in the Philippines as vaccination rates increase.

With this, the country’s chief economist proposed to change the metrics used in making decisions as “this will align better to the objectives in an ‘endemic world’.”

From the current metrics of relying total cases and total deaths on responding to the health crisis, Chua proposed a new metric of using the total number of severe or critical cases and case fatality ratio or the proportion of those who died from the total number of people diagnosed with the same disease.

Chua said that among the benefits of changing metrics is it will reduce the need to raise alert level when cases go up, facilitate a shift in mindset to help people “live with the virus,” and focusing on the number of severe cases and the fatality ratio would help emphasize the importance of vaccination.

The changing of metrics is part of the NEDA’s proposed 10-point policy to accelerate and sustain economic recovery, which include the following:

•     Accelerate vaccination rate and expand to children
•     Ensure adequate healthcare capacity at all times
•     Further reopen the economy and expand public transport capacity
•     Reopen face-to-face learning
•     Remove most restrictions for domestic travel for vaccinated travelers
•     Further relax requirement for international arrivals
•     Accelerate digital transformation
•     Enact a pandemic flexibility bill
•     Medium-term planning by using lessons from the pandemic to make society more resilient against future pandemics.

To accelerate and sustain recovery, more is needed in the area of vaccination, healthcare, economic opening, school opening, mobility, and future pandemic management, according to Chua.

The NEDA chief noted the progress made this year which allowed for further safe reopening of the economy and effective management of COVID-19 risks.

The progress includes the acceleration of the vaccination program and reduced restrictions for the vaccinated; shift from large-area community quarantine to alert level system and granular lockdowns; shift in risk area from general to 3C’s or closed space, crowds, closed contact; and removal of mobility restrictions based on age.

Chua also noted the increase in transport capacity up to 70% to 100%, reduction in requirements when traveling, pilot opening of face-to-face classes after more than one-and-a-half years, and the removal of the face shield requirement for areas under Alert Level 1 to 3.—AOL, GMA News