The Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI) will respect the decision of the Inter-Agency Task Force on the clamor to place Metro Manila and other areas under hard lockdown as long as it is based on science and sound analysis of relevant statistics, according to its chairman, Dr. Jesus L. Arranza.

Mr. Arranza said the group is not inclined to join the debates on whether another round of strict community quarantine would be a boon or bane for the country that will only tend to cause division.

“This lingering battle against Covid-19 and its socio-economic impact requires the cooperation of all sectors. So, while we at FPI are also concerned about the effect of another lockdown on our economy, we are also confident of the ability of IATF members to determine which course to take in arresting the rising number of infections amid the emergence of the deadlier and more transmissible Delta variant,” Arranza said.

He, however, appealed to the Department of Health (DOH) and the IATF to consider the idea of summoning leaders of medical institutions into a summit where they would share notes on best practices that led to the recovery of some 1.5 million Covid-19 patients in the country.

“Our doctors and other health experts have never really come together to formally discuss how we achieved such a number of recoveries. What we are only hearing are anecdotal accounts of how people were healed, rather than factual and science-based,” Mr. Arranza noted.

He said a clear report and statistics on what the hospitals are doing to treat Covid-19 patients, whether they have comorbidities or not, will help ease the anxiety of Filipinos. This will also give everyone the needed information to prevent them from relying on mere rumors or recommendations of people identifying themselves as experts on social media on how best to treat Covid.

Arranza said in this summit, the hospitals can also share how they are treating Covid patients according to their comorbidities and come up with a chart indicating best practices and treatment protocols.

The health experts can also take this opportunity to benchmark what Philippine hospitals are doing with the best practices of leading medical institutions worldwide.

More importantly, Mr. Arranza said the government also needs to ramp up its public inoculation program, as reaching herd immunity is still the best way to protect Filipinos from Covid and finally realize the unhampered recovery of the economy.