Coronavirus Lockdown: COVID-19 Vaccines "Will Buy You Freedom to Move Around", Cases Continue to Drop, and More!

More news about how the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines is being handled by the public and the government. 

The public has been told they need to learn to live with new variants.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1171815

The emergence of different Covid-19 variants would always pose a threat and it is up to the people on how they will follow precautions and efforts to reduce transmissions.

Vaccine expert panel chair, Dr. Nina Gloriani, said Friday the world must have learned to live with the coronavirus disease 2019 by now.

“(It’s up to us on how we could prevent the increase in cases. While there are still cases, even if they go down, the transmission has always point of beginnings, its multiplications, the mutations of the virus),” Gloriani said in a virtual public briefing.

Gloriani said the recombinant Omicron XE variant, reportedly detected in the United Kingdom, is about 10 percent more transmissible than its Omicron parent, BA.2, but its biological mutation activity and behavioral characteristics are still being studied.

Translation: COVID is here to stay but any increase in cases is to be blamed solely on the public for not following health protocols. The DOH is preparing for a surge in cases after the election.

https://www.cnnphilippines.com/news/2022/4/14/COVID-19-surge-May-elections.html

The Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday warned of a possible spike in COVID-19 cases in the middle of May if Filipinos continue to disregard health protocols, saying it could surpass the infections recorded during the Omicron variant surge in January.

The compliance to minimum public health standards (MPHS), such as social distancing and proper wearing of face masks, declined by 12% in Metro Manila and 7% nationwide in March and April, according to the sub-Technical Working Group on Data Analytics (sTWG DA) and the Feasibility Analysis of Syndromic Surveillance using Spatio-temporal Epidemiological Modeler for Early Detection of Diseases (FASSSTER) Team.

Based on the disease models, a 20% decrease in MPHS compliance at the national level could lead to around 34,788 active cases with over 564 of these as severe and 267 as critical in mid-May; while a 30% decrease in MPHS compliance might bring the cases up further to as high as 300,000 over the same time period.

Despite the grim projections, the DOH said this is not cast in stone and it can be prevented if Filipinos wear proper fitting masks, isolate when they have flu-like symptoms, complete their COVID-19 shots and booster dose, and stay in well-ventilated areas.

"The good news is, at this point, these are all still projections," she pointed out. "We can still avert these estimates in favor of better scenarios. We can all do our part to help stop transmission and mutation of the virus."

Why are they making these kind of calculations? How are they helpful and not just more fear mongering and blame tossing? If the public are the blame for an increase in cases because they are not complying with MPHS then aren't those who are supposed to enforce those rules even more to blame?

Remember how the government took out a lot of loans to fight the virus? It's going to take 40 years to pay off that debt.

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1583691/covid-19-debt-payoff-to-take-2-generations

It will take 40 years, or about two generations, to repay the P1.31 trillion in foreign debt that the Duterte administration incurred for the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Finance (DOF) said on Saturday.

Repaying the debts that piled up due to COVID-19 “will require a fiscal consolidation program and improved revenue collection,” said retired Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran, now the DOF’s chief economist, in an economic bulletin.

As of January, the Philippines borrowed $25.7 billion (about P1.31 trillion) from banks and bilateral partners, but most of the P1.31-trillion debt were sovereign bonds, amounting to P559.1 billion, that will mature over the next years until 2060.

This should make us all feel better about our personal debts.

COVID-19 cases in the Philippines continue to drop with only 1,571 new cases being recorded last week.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1172445

The number of new Covid-19 cases continues to decline nationwide with an average daily case of 224 for the week of April 12 to 18, a health official said Tuesday.

The recent average is 17 percent lower than last week’s 271, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in an online media forum.

The country’s total tally of new cases for the same week is 1,571.

“Sa kasalukuyang bilang ng ating (In our current number of our) active cases, 18,672 [for] the asymptomatic or has mild symptoms while the number of severe and critical cases has gone down to 1,251. The positivity rate remains at 1.6 percent,” Vergeire said.

But at the same time cases are also rising.

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1584616/14-areas-under-alert-level-1-having-gradual-rise-in-covid-19-cases

 Fourteen areas under Alert Level 1 are seeing a “gradual rise” in COVID-19 cases, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said during the taped weekly “Talk to the People” briefing with President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday.

Duque did not enumerate the 14 areas . But he named three regions with the highest number of recorded cases from April 12 to 18: Metro Manila with 606 cases, Calabarzon with 226, and Central Luzon with 181 cases.

The top three towns or cities nationwide are Cavite City with 101 cases, Manila with 92, and Quezon City with 82.

According to Duque, this developed despite a report of the Department of Health (DOH) showing fewer cases from April 10 to 17 — a total of 1,674, which gives an average of only 239 positive cases per day nationwide.

The DOH COVID-19 Tracker also showed that only 170 new cases were recorded on Monday, April 18 — much lower than the average number of cases per day in the previous week.

Why bring attention to this trend when the overall trend is cases are declining? Could it be because want the public to still be afraid that they could get infected? Could it be because they want people to get a booster shot?

The WHO is recommending door-to-door vaccination or else cases could explode.

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/04/18/22/many-barangays-yet-to-reach-70pct-vaccine-coverage-who

The Philippines must focus on COVID-19 vaccination to avoid a surge as COVID-19 restrictions ease and the public's mobility increases, the World Health Organization said Monday.

Many barangays have yet to reach 70 percent vaccination coverage, according to WHO representative Rajendra Yadav.

Local chief executives must reach barangays with low vaccine coverage through "last mile approach" or house-to-house or close-to-home vaccination, Yadav said.

"Whether this social mixing and increased mobility during Easter will increase cases or not depends on whether people wore masks, avoided crowds and (gathered in) fully-ventilated places," he said in a televised press briefing.

"We should not rely on number of cases to know whether we have too much COVID or not. Rather we need to focus on increasing our vaccination. Whether the numbers will increase or not, only time will tell. We should not focus too much on the numbers of cases rather the number of people vaccinated."

It is possible for the Philippines to tally up to 300,000 active cases should the public relax adherence to health protocols, Yadav said.

"We have to prove those numbers wrong that's the challenge we face. If we relax our guards, our defenses then yes it’s possible to go to those numbers," he said.

"In South Korea, which has half of the population of Philippines, already has 600,000 cases per day. The good thing is Filipinos are one of the best in wearing masks. There was some decline recently in mask-wearing--that should not happen and we have to cover our people with vaccines."

In fact vaccination "will buy you freedom."

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/04/20/22/covid-vaccination-key-to-moving-around-presl-adviser

COVID-19 vaccines "will buy you freedom to move around", Presidential Adviser for Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion said Wednesday as he urged people anew to get their COVID-19 booster shots, fearing that the low uptake rate could derail the country's pandemic recovery and waste billions of pesos worth of jab supply. 

Concepcion reiterated the protection vaccines offer and said eligible individuals should at least get the first booster dose. Government is currently preparing for the rollout of the second booster shot for the elderly and immunocompromised.

(That is what we are protecting, the wall of immunity, so our freedom to go out, dine out with friends, and travel abroad or in the Philippines would be sustained.)

"The price of that is to improve our level of immunity through vaccination and booster... Kung magsasarado tayo ulit sa Alert Level 3 or 4, then masisira yung negosyo, pati yung economy ng Pilipinas... We should realize the whole implication here," he added.

(If we will close again due to Alert Level 3 or 4, then our businesses will be affected negatively. The economy of the Philippines will be affected badly, too.)

The improving domestic economy, manifested for example by the overcapacity of tourists in Boracay over the Holy Week, affirmed Filipinos' desire for things to go back to normal, Concepcion said. 

To sustain this, he said, a high COVID-19 vaccination and booster rate should be considered. 

(Almost all of the families wanted go on vacation and Boracay is the best spot. For 2 years they were closed, and it is important to maintain our mobility. But the good thing here is that tourists are vaccinated. If they get sick, it will just be mild.)

The government really is doing all they can to push taking the shot. The economy never needed to be closed in the first place and if it happens again the government will be to blame no matter how much they try to blame the public. 

The reality is that despite the fear mongering is COVID-19 cases are down and there have never been any significant number of deaths from COVID as the death rate remains around 1% of the population and .05% of the infected. The low number of cases means there are now no more areas under lockdown.

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1584619/no-more-areas-under-granular-lockdown-says-ano

There are no more areas under granular lockdown nationwide, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said during the taped weekly “Talk to the People” briefing with President Rodrigo Duterte that aired late on Monday.

“From April 10 to April 16, for the first time, there was no recorded granular lockdown in the Philippines,” Año said in Filipino.

There were six areas under lockdown during the previous week, but all had been lifted, as of April 16, according to Año.

Still, Año assured the president that the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) would remain strict in implementing the minimum public health standards during the COVID-19 pandemic.

That doesn't mean there won't be more granular lockdowns. It is a tool still in the government's belt.