HOME quarantine for coronavirus disease (Covid-19) patients is allowed for now, Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said Friday, September 11, 2020.
Vergeire said the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) is still set to deliberate on the proposal of the Department of the Interior and Local Government to prohibit home quarantine.
"This recommendation was put forth and, yesterday, it was discussed in the IATF-EID. But the resolution was to study it further," said Vergeire.
"Maybe next week, we can already resolve this so that we can have an accurate and complete policy on this (home quarantine)," she added.
Nevertheless, Vergeire reiterated that undergoing home quarantine for Covid-19 patients who are asymptomatic or with mild symptoms is already being discouraged by the government.
"The NTF and the Department of the Interior and Local Government went around and they saw that home quarantine is not appropriate for many of our countrymen. (This is why) home quarantine is being discouraged," Vergeire said.
NTF is the National Task Force against Covid-19, which has supported the DILG proposal.
The existing policy is that home quarantine is allowed if a patient has his own room and comfort room, and provided there are no elderly and immunocompromised patients in the same house.
Those on home quarantine should also be monitored by the Barangay Health Emergency Response Teams.
Meanwhile, the DOH said it is set to meet with the Department of Transportation (DOTr) regarding the reduction in physical distancing requirements in all forms of public transportation.
"We are talking with the DOTr on this matter, particularly on how we can do this without compromising the physical distance measures that we are saying," said Vergeire. (HDT/VoxPop Philippines)