"Social distancing is difficult for most Filipinos."
"Social distancing is difficult for most Filipinos."
The coronavirus crisis in the Philippines is entering its critical phase when the so-called curve (showing the volume or number of people sick of COVID-19) rises sharply to form a left half of a mountain with its peak. After that, if containment and mitigation are effective, the curve dives sharply to form the right half of the mountain, and then flatten.
The curve flattened in two remarkable case studies — China and in Singapore.
China employed draconian measures such as freezing to inactivity up to 60 million Chinese, as well as technology – big data, AI, face recognition, robotics, drones, and telemedicine. In partnership with its tech giants Alibaba and Tencent, China color-coded its citizens (based on their medical and travel histories), used cellphones to track hundreds of millions Chinese daily in some 200 Chinese cities. If you are green, you can pass through checkpoints; red means no. Yellow means you have to see someone to get clearance. In effect, some 1.4 billion Chinese have been reduced to computer bits. That is good when you have a disease, but bad when you are trying to exercise freedom of expression or criticizing the government.
For its part, Singapore employed massive testing of its 5.7 million people and hunted down relentlessly the people with whom a victim had been in contact. This is what they call contact tracing, a tedious and rigid process. In China, the government deployed 1,800 five-man contact teams.
Since declaring an outbreak in early February which initially triggered panic buying, Singapore has had 313 COVID-19 cases but no deaths. Of the 313, 114 have recovered. Singapore is reporting three times the number of COVID-19 cases as other countries, thanks to its strict surveillance and rigorous contact tracing. There is no lockdown, except for the quarantine of 3,700 people. People are free to go out and shop.
Contrast that with the Philippines. The world’s 12th-largest country in terms of population is reckoned to have 202 cases and 19 deaths, a fatality ratio of 10 percent – the highest in the world and two and half times the global average of 4 percent – 8,810 deaths out of 218,824 cases.
China’s mortality ratio is 3 percent. Italy, the second worst hit country, is 2,978 deaths out of 35,713 or 8 percent; Iran 6 percent, Spain 4 percent; Japan 3 percent; and France and Switzerland, one percent.
China seems to have conquered the coronavirus. As of yesterday (March 19), only 53 new COVID-19 (the disease caused by the coronavirus) cases surfaced, from 81,086 to 81,139 even as the global total swelled in just 24 hours, by 20,663 to 218,85, from 198,152 the previous day.
China now accounts for only 37 percent of the global total of COVID-19 cases, down from more than 96 percent share as late as Feb. 26, 2020.
On March 10, 2020, with COVID-19 Chinese cases at 80,754, President Xi Jinping made his victory lap. He visited Wuhan, the origin and the epicenter of the outbreak and which was in lockdown for more than two months. The people of Wuhan can now go out of their homes, walk the streets, shop, mingle with each other, on a staggered basis.
The Philippines has adopted the Chinese lockdown formula. From Monday, March 16, 2020 until April 14, 2020, more than 48 million Filipinos are restricted in their homes. Schools are closed, probably until the end of the school year. Public transport has halted. More than 90 percent of factories were shut down. The idea is social distancing. Because the coronavirus can travel no farther than six feet, two people must keep a distance of six feet between them, even if they are a couple, lovers, partners. What ever happened to the marriage vow of “in sickness and in health, till death do us part”?
During the 30-day Luzon-wide lockdown, only essential services are allowed – health care, shipment of food and medical supplies, and police and military operations. I guess the exemptions assume the health personnel, cargo and food delivery people, and the police and the military are not susceptible to coronavirus attack.
Still, despite the checkpoints in key chokepoints, people spilled out in massive numbers. One, because they have to work; two, because they have no decent homes to house themselves in during the quarantine; and three, they cannot work from home. How does a driver work from home?
These people believe in the late John Gokongwei dictum of “if you don’t work, you don’t eat.” And if you don’t eat, you die.
Between dying and braving an invisible enemy named coronavirus, many Filipinos took the latter option. Anyway, your chances of catching the virus are less than one percent and your chances of recovery if afflicted is 80 percent. But if you don’t eat, maximum three days, 100 percent you die. The math of the poor can be very simple and easy to understand.
Besides, 85 percent of people in Metro Manila cannot practice social distancing, firstly, because they don’t have homes, and secondly, if they have dwelling places, these units cannot be classified as homes. Inside a shanty, you cannot practice social distancing, not matter how strong is your will power. The average home or accessoria is 18 to 22 square meters, a space that combines the sala or living room, bedroom, kitchen and toilet (if any) in one room. Five to seven people are cramped in such a small space where they eat, watch tv, study, bathe, sleep and fornicate.
Which is why on tv the other night, in some Manila squatter areas, people spilled into the streets and managed social distancing. Fresh air is sweet in a democracy.
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