MANILA—Presidential adviser for entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion said he believes shifting to a granular lockdown is the "right approach" to revive the economy.

In an interview on Teleradyo Monday, Concepcion said it is the right time to try new approaches in dealing with the pandemic, even as the country reached another record-high number of new COVID-19 cases.

"This is the right approach. If we don't try new things then we would not be able to live with COVID-19," he said.

"We have to try granular type of lockdowns. It's more challenging to do that kasi you really have to be data-driven, you really have to have a good implementation team, you'll have more security people.

"It's challenging but it's worth the try. If we don't try then we will never know, and it's good to pilot it at this point in time."

Malacañang on Monday announced Metro Manila will go on a general community quarantine (GCQ), the second-loosest lockdown level, beginning Wednesday, September 8, until the end of the month.

The government will also be implementing a localized lockdown scheme, wherein cities could be placed under different alert levels.

Concepcion, who earlier proposed only allowing vaccinated people to go to malls and restaurants, also said he has been urging local chief executives to try his suggestion.

"Very clearly, our problem really is our hospitals can get full as we have more sick people. So if we allow the economy to open, clearly we have to protect the unvaccinated, and that's the reason why we are really strongly recommending that it's only the vaccinated that go out to high-risk establishments," Concepcion said.

"The unvaccinated can still go out to work, can still buy their essentials, but limited to less risky establishments," he added, saying that the proposal can be pilot-tested in a city with the highest vaccination rate.

"This is, to me, the best time to try new things. You don't try things when it is normal. It's like an acid test. Let's see if it works. If it doesn't, then we can pull out, anyway isang LGU lang naman," Concepcion also said.

Watch more in iWantv or TFC.tv

The alert level for each city and municipality will be decided by the Department of Health, depending on factors such as hospital capacity and the number of cases.

The entire Metro Manila, except Manila, is under the highest Alert Level 4 because hospital bed capacity is more than 70 percent, and the area is under moderate to critical risk for COVID-19, according to the DOH.

• Metro Manila goes down to GCQ from Wed, to pilot granular lockdown shift

After ECQ, MECQ, GCQ, MGCQ, the PH government is implementing a new strategy vs COVID-19 in Metro Manila starting September 8: granular lockdowns.

Here are initial info on how this will work.
More details are expected in the coming days, says Malacañang.https://t.co/WRgHh3Ercx pic.twitter.com/1aTGn65HE4

— ABS-CBN News (@ABSCBNNews) September 6, 2021

As of Monday, the Philippines has a total of 2,103,331 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 34,337 deaths and 1,909,361 recoveries.

RELATED VIDEO

Watch more in iWantv or TFC.tv