Isolate the sick to get the economy moving, says Concepcion

After the two-month lockdown of Metro Manila, the country should start working on a normalization process using the simple strategy of isolating the sick, not those who are healthy, according to the Presidential adviser for entrepreneurship.

Presidential Adviser Joey Concepcion also said in a recent online seminar that the government’s fiscal stimulus program should have an infrastructure component to reemploy construction workers, such as in building road networks.

Since they would be working under the sun in this hot summer weather, Concepcion suggested it won’t be a good environment for the dreaded COVID-19 virus to thrive in.

Concepcion also said that he talked with proponents of relief operations in poor communities and asked them about their infection rates. He claimed that they were “unanimous in saying that it’s very minimal.”

“Many of the poor are somehow resilient to the virus. Maybe because they are so used to so much exposure that they have a better immunity than us who are sheltered in well-protected environments,” he said.

“That’s the same case I make why [we should] shelter and lockdown the healthy when we should, you know, isolate the infected. Moving forward, that should be the case. That should be the strategy,” he added.

Concepcion,  president and chief executive of major food and beverage company RFM Corp., was one of the panelists in a free online seminar hosted by the Shareholders’ Association of the Philippines on Wednesday.

The seminar was themed “Economic Recovery through Fiscal Stimulus,” which featured lawmakers who are proposing ways to restart the economy. These speakers were Rep. Stella Quimbo, Rep. Joey Salceda, and Rep. Sharon Garin.

When asked for his reaction to the speakers’ notes, Concepcion emphasized the importance of massive testing, which has so far been a shared premise among the speakers.

He is spearheading a private sector initiative called Project Ark, which essentially would have employers — on a voluntary basis — answer for the costs of massive testing their employees.

Moreover, before the May 15 extension, Concepcion was a strong advocate of barangay-based quarantines, arguing that some barangays should not be “penalized” for having no infections. WITH A REPORT BY DORIS DUMLAO-ABADILLA