The IATF-EID was convened in January 2020 to address the growing viral outbreak in Wuhan, China.[3] They made a resolution to manage the spreading of the new virus,[3] which was known at the time as 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) and eventually renamed to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).[4] On March 9, 2020, President Duterte called the IATF amidst the rising cases of COVID-19 in the Philippines.[5]