Concepcion presents to ASEAN safe ways to reopen the economy, calls for sharing of best practices on Covid-19 management

Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship and Go Negosyo founder Joey Concepcion presented to the 53rd ASEAN Economic Ministers’ Meeting as to how to open the economy safely amid the pandemic. Concepcion presented to his counterparts in other ASEAN member-countries how countries can strike a balance in preventing COVID-19 infections while safely recovering economically.

“It’s very clear that the unvaccinated are a risk to the economy in the sense that they have the greatest risk of getting confined in the hospital due to the virus. This is why we are proposing the vaccine bubble, or what we call in the Philippines as ‘bakuna bubble,’ which is aimed at protecting the family bubble and business bubble, thereby creating greater mobility for the vaccinated people in order to spur the economy,” Concepcion said.

It can be recalled that Concepcion-led Go Negosyo has spearheaded private sector procurement of vaccines from pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, majority of which came from Thailand. On that note, Concepcion also asked Thailand to be a regular source of vaccines to ensure the proposed mobility for the vaccinated to be sustainable.

Concepcion then shared to the ASEAN community that it is the unvaccinated who are at serious risk in terms of landing in hospitals for treatment and immediate medical attention, some even falling to critical state.

“In the Philippines, between 70 to 80% of those admitted and critical patients are unvaccinated. By allowing only the vaccinated to go out in high-risk areas such as business establishments, we will be able to protect the unvaccinated and lessen the surge of hospital admissions,” Concepcion stressed.

With this, the model he proposes is to only allow the fully vaccinated to create economic activity. “This is the safest way for us to open the economy while taking into consideration how to protect the unvaccinated,” he added.

“This model clearly gears up the heads of the families to ensure that their family members are fully vaccinated, likewise with the CEOs and executives of businesses to devote all effort in convincing their employees, especially the frontliners, to take the vaccine. The Transport Bubble is equally important in bridging the family and employees to their business bubble,” Concepcion ended.”

Lastly, Concepcion proposed the first ASEAN Exchange on COVID-19 where member-countries can share best practices to save both their countries’ lives and livelihood.
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