The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said the country has been improving in managing the Covid-19 crisis, while safely reopening the economy based on the National Action Plan (NAP) IV scorecard.
NEDA Undersecretary Rosemarie Edillon on Monday presented the country’s NAP IV scorecard for October which is at 4.83, better than the 4.42 score in September.
The NAP IV scorecard gauges how the country is doing in infection management, vaccine rollout, and socioeconomic recovery in a particular month.
In October, the score on infection management improved to 1.44 from 1.25 in September mainly due to the lower number of severe and critical Covid-19 cases.
The number of severe and critical Covid-19 cases last month declined to 114,508, lower from a peak of 186,393 cases recorded in September.
The score on vaccine rollout likewise went up to 1.30 last month from a score of 0.99 in September as the government accelerates its inoculation program against Covid-19 and with a higher number of the population being fully vaccinated.
On the other hand, the score on socioeconomic recovery slipped in October to 2.10 from 2.18 in September mainly due to lower flight activities.
The score on socioeconomic recovery is measured based on the manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) by IHS Markit, Google mobility, and flight activities.
Flight activities in October were lower with 599,715 passengers compared to September’s number of 973,962.
“The reason for the downward, for that decline, is really the flights, where I think we had many flight activities that were allowed in September but because of, you know, the surge in our cases then, we brought it down in October and that was the reason for that decline,” she said.
The manufacturing index in October was at 51, still lower than the normalizing value of 52.3 which is the peak score in 2019.
Google mobility last month is nearing the normalizing value of 1 at -17.8, better than September’s number of -27.57.
“The goal of the National Action Plan Phase IV is to manage Covid-19 towards a healthier and resilient Philippines,” Edillon said. “The goal really is to balance this health and economic objectives… a safe reopening of the economy.” (PNA)