At first glance, it seems reassuring that the Philippines’ cumulative 884,783 COVID-19 cases as of April 13 is just around half of Indonesia’s 1.58 million infections. However, the Philippines’ 165,534 active cases is the highest in the region and more than Indonesia’s 108,599 active cases – even if Indonesia’s population is over two-and-a-half times bigger.
AHW said understaffing schemes by hospitals force health workers to be on duty for at least 12 hours or even 24 hours while some hospitals only have skeletal forces.
Halfway into the week-long stricter lockdown in the capital, health workers are still in agony over their unmet demands, with the government failing to address their call to look into their health, economic, and social well-being as they combat the pandemic on the ground.
“To match the standards of World Health Organization’s positivity rate on a daily basis, We should be testing at least 130,000 individuals per day, at least 90,000 in NCR, at the current rate that we are going.”
The latest IATF resolution released on Sunday lacks at least six policies that are crucial to addressing a worsening pandemic, especially when you are implementing a lockdown.
But what is even more alarming for Filipinos is that amid the surge in new COVID-19 cases, the response of the Duterte government to the pandemic more than a year into the crisis remains grossly inadequate and incompetent. While implementing the strictest and longest lockdown in the region, the Philippines continues to lag behind our neighbors in Southeast Asia in actually responding to the pandemic.
“We are puzzled. Where did the huge amount of debts go? There is no transparency how the Bayanihan 1 and 2 funds had been spent.”
The Philippines has recorded an all-time highest tally – 7,103 new COVID-19 cases – today, March 19.
A year since the world’s longest and strictest lockdown was imposed, health workers here in the Philippines are still dying due to the dreaded virus – the latest is a unionist in a government hospital.
“Duterte failed. Duque failed. They should be held accountable.”
While government officials and personalities have breached protocols and got away with it, nearly 600,000 Filipinos, mostly poor, have been warned, ticketed, fined, and charged over quarantine violations.