The Department of Health (DOH) on Friday said that it has issued clear guidelines on home quarantine to local government units and other concerned agencies since April.

“Since April 11 mayroon na po tayong inilabas na polisiya galing po dito sa DOH, 'yung sinabi po na department memorandum na 'yan.  Kasunod niyan, na-supplement pa 'yan kasi nagkaroon tayo ng joint administrative order with the DILG (Department of Interior and Local Government) noong April 15 (Since April 11, we have issued a policy or a department memorandum. Following that, it was supplemented because we had a joint administrative order with the DILG on April 15),” said Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire.

“Talagang sinabi diyan na hindi ka puwedeng mag-home quarantine if these specific conditions were not met (It was stated there that you cannot go home quarantine if these specific conditions were not met),” she added, in reaction to presidential spokesperson Harry Roque’s remarks that the DOH should have been clearer in the home quarantine guidelines which he said has contributed to the spike in the number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases.

The DOH said that COVID-19 patients under home quarantine must have their own room, bathroom, and do not have any person in their house that is considered vulnerable.

“Ang sa amin, April palang nailabas na natin ‘yan, naipaliwanag natin. When we do our meetings, we usually do it with high level officials of government ng local and then we have town halls –nakausap namin ‘yung public information officers kapag binibigay natin ang ganitong patakaran (For our part, we released that in April and we had  explained it. When we do our meetings, we usually do it with high level local government officials and then we have town halls – we talk to public information officers when we give this kind of policy),” said Vergeire.

Vergeire stressed that there are a lot of factors that contribute to the increasing infection. “Kailangan natin maintindihan hindi lang iyan ang cause kung bakit tumataas ang kaso (We need to understand that this is not the only reason why the number of cases is rising),” she said.

She cited other factors such as the easing of community restrictions and the increase in testing capacity.

Vergeire said that they cannot say that their efforts are “weak” or that the barangay health emergency response teams are lacking in terms of monitoring suspect, probable, and mild or asymptomatic COVID-19 patients who are isolating at their respective homes.

“They are doing so much already dito sa ground. They have been tasked to do contact tracing, surveillance, monitor patients in their homes,” said Vergeire.

“Marami pa tayong kailangan matutunan at maimprove dito sa response natin, Pero ‘wag natin itukoy lang sa isang bagay ang mga nangyayari ngayon because that would also be unfair for our local government units (We still have a lot to learn and improve here in our response, but let's not just focus on one thing because that would also be unfair for our local government units),” she added.