"Here’s why we are failing."
"Here’s why we are failing."
The Philippine pandemic situation has turned for the worse—in fact, the worst since COVID-19 entered the archipelago in February 2020.
The country as of Aug. 24, 2021, has had 1.857 million cases, with 1.695 recovered and 31,961 deaths, for a total active cases of 130,350—a record high.
On Aug. 23 daily new cases hit a peak of 18,332, higher by 3,052 or 20 percent from the previous record high daily cases of 15,280 scaled on April 2, 2021. The average daily cases during the three days of Aug. 21-23, 2021 exceeded the April 2, 2021 high of 15,000.
COVID has attacked all the regions of the Philippines; 76 of 100 provinces are under siege, especially with the Delta variant becoming more ascendant.
More and more people are getting sick (an average of 16,000 plus cases daily), and more and more people are dying (100 to 300 people daily, double the previous rates). The highest daily deaths were recorded on Aug. 21, 2021, 397, toppling the previous high of 382 daily deaths on April 6, 2021. More and more of those getting sick and dying are younger, 50 and below.
The situation is worsening for three reasons:
One, the government is ill-prepared for the sudden surge in COVID cases, in terms of beefed-up testing, tracing of possible cases, and treatment.
Testing, contact tracing and treatment are the three Ts of credible pandemic management.
There is a fourth T—trust. With colossal incompetence and incredible corruption of some top government officials, do you think our people trust the people in charge of pandemic management? In other words, we are failing on all four Ts of effective pandemic management.
Two, there are not enough vaccines. Originally, two doses of vaccines made by Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Sinovac would have been enough to give us better than adequate immunity against infection and/or death, for say 6 to 8 months—95 percent against getting sick with symptoms for Pfizer; 94.1 percent for Moderna, 70.4 percent for AstraZeneca, and 65.9 percent for Sinovac.
At two doses per vaccine and an original herd immunity target of 70 percent (that has now been lowered to 50 percent and called simply “population protection”), Filipinos needed 140 million vaccines—this year.
Now, with Delta, the new wisdom is that you need a third dose, even if you had Pfizer or Moderna and particularly if you had been jabbed with Sinovac.
So we need an additional 70 million. Add the 140 million with two doses, you need 210 million doses. Current supply it seems is only between 50 million and 70 million. There is a severe vaccine shortage. And nobody, right now, knows where to get all the vaccines we needed yesterday.
Delta is more vicious than the original COVID. The Wuhan COVID could infect two people per attack, within 15 minutes to 60 minutes. Delta from India, could infect five to eight people, per attack, which happens in split seconds. Both the vaccinated and unvaccinated carry in their mouths the same volume of virus cells.
Delta works faster than the time it takes pandas to have sex, considered the fastest on earth for living things of their size.
Three, given the failure on the four Ts and the shortage in vaccines, the standard remedy has been lockdowns—in various acronyms to hide their level of severity.
Level 3, the most strict, is called enhanced community quarantine or ECQ. Level 2 is MECQ—modified enhanced community quarantine; and Level 1 is GCQ—general community quarantine, which comes in two forms—with heightened restrictions and with some restrictions.
But people and businesses are sick and tired of lockdowns of all kinds.
With the lockdowns, 70 percent of businesses have been shut down; 70 percent of people who should be working have been laid off or had to suffer reduced working hours.
The result is massive poverty, up to nearly half of the population, if you believe the Social Weather Stations, and up to 17 percent, if you believe the government. Each percentage point of poverty is equivalent to one million people.
You can imagine the hunger and restiveness among more than 17 million Filipinos who are hungry, jobless, and yet, under lockdown. They are not even allowed to hear mass. Kids and old people are not even allowed outside their homes, if any. And churches have traditionally been places of refuge during crises.
As a result of the 2020 lockdowns, the economy lost P2 trillion worth of production, more than 11 percent of its usual output.
Add the P5 trillion that is stolen annually by government people and you have P7 trillion down the drain yearly. Normally, such numbers are enough for the people to rise in arms and bring down their government.
Instead, if you believe Pulse Asia, 91 percent of the people love President Duterte, trust him, and like his job performance, although some people have the impression he is asleep and hiding from his people most of the time.
Taking its cue, the PDP-Laban, the party that used to fight and overthrow incompetent, corrupt and oppressive rulers, nominated Digong Duterte for vice president in the May 2022 elections.
Yesterday, the presidential palace announced “ Duterte “accepted the endorsement” of the party and “agreed to make the sacrifice and heed the clamor of the people.”
As the Tagalogs would sigh, “wala ako masabi.” Love ko talaga si Digong.
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