The Concerned Doctors and Citizens of the Philippines, a group of professionals and experts from the medical, health, business, financial, and research industries, is mounting an information campaign called “Flatten the Fear.”
According to CDC PH, it is not enough that government agencies are only focused on “flattening the curve” – a now-familiar catch-all phrase referring to managing the COVID-19 infection rate so as not to overwhelm medical treatment facilities throughout the country.
“We agree that it’s important to contain COVID-19 infections,” said Dr. Iggy Agbayani, an orthopedic surgeon.
“However, it is also important to manage the level of fear that people are experiencing in many communities throughout the country. By spreading the right medical information, we can flatten the fear and help end the lockdown.”
According to economist Nonoy Oplas, fear and panic have already led to many cases of dangerous, irrational behavior toward health workers who faced discrimination, and patients and recoverees who were evicted by lessors or had their houses forcibly searched by barangay officials.
Dr. Homer Lim, a geriatrician and integrative doctor, said with the medical knowledge accumulated over the past six months, the country’ primary tool against the virus ought to be a national protocol for the prophylaxis (preventive) and early treatment of COVID-19 that reduces hospitalizations and saves lives.
Members of CDC PH have sought a meeting with the medical advisers of the Inter-agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID).
Lim said CDC PH can provide medical studies that show the effectiveness of zinc, vitamin D3, and vitamin C as part of an early treatment regimen that includes azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine (HCQ).
According to CDC PH, there have been hundreds of patients who have benefited from HCQ treatments.
These recoveries include about 400 high-risk COVID-19 patients who were treated by Dr. Jerry Jurado, a Filipino doctor in New Jersey, USA, who used HCQ, azithromycin and zinc.
Here in the Philippines, during the height of the pandemic, Dr. Lim treated over 100 COVID-19 patients using the same protocols with great success.
CDC PH also cited a Newsweek article, “The Key to Defeating COVID-19 Already Exists. We Need to Start Using It,” written by Harvey Risch, a professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, that points to seven studies, all published after May 2020, reporting on the efficacy of HCQ.
According to CDC PH, by strengthening the preventive and early-treatment protocols of the national health system, government leaders will no longer need to choose between saving the economy or saving precious Filipino lives.
“With the good health of both our economy and our people assured, we will truly begin to heal as one,” CDC PH said.