MANILA – Authorities discouraged home quarantine for individuals who tested positive for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) to lessen the risk of virus transmission.
The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) now prefers COVID-19 patients to undergo facility quarantine, Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said.
“We are now discouraging ‘yung tinatawag na mag-home quarantine. Dapat facility quarantine na,” Nograles, also the IATF-EID co-chairperson, said in an interview with DZBB.
Nograles pointed out that there is a bigger chance that other members of the household will also contract the virus if a COVID-19 positive patient undergoes home quarantine even if he or she isolates himself or herself in a separate room.
“Kung merong mga cases, dapat facility quarantine na sila. Marami pa naman tayong mga facilities na maka-accommodate ng mga mild cases,” Nograles said.
Based on the latest data from the Department of Health, there were 54,222 cases of COVID-19 in the country, with 14,037 recoveries and 1,372 deaths./PN
