Thursday, May 26, 2022

Coronavirus Lockdown: High Demand for Illegal Drugs, Wall of Immunity, and More!

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

As the pandemic wanes restrictions are being relaxed. Of course that means more illegal drugs on the streets.

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1599165/high-demand-for-illegal-drug-seen-with-relaxed-restrictions-dilg-exec

Demand for illegal drugs is seen to increase as pandemic mobility restrictions are relaxed, an official of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) said Wednesday.

“Yeah, I do make that anticipation,” said DILG Undersecretary Epimaco Densing over ANC when asked if the agency expects the drug demands to go up with relaxed pandemic restrictions.

“Unfortunately, as people make money, and people are losing jobs, they would like to look at alternative ways of making money and illegal drugs is really just, unfortunately, one of them,” he added.

Because of this, Densing said the government will continue to be aggressive in its war against drugs.

“But as long as the government continues to be aggressive against, and as I have mentioned, resilient, in the anti illegal drug program, while we say we wouldn’t be able to bring down illegal drugs a hundred percent, at least we put them at a minimal level,” he added.

People who are losing jobs and might just look to selling illegal drugs? Gee, perhaps the government should not have shut down the  economy like they did for a whole year. Not that it's necessarily going to happen. This appears to be fear mongering for the violent war on drugs.

There is a lot of speculation going on in the name of fear mongering. So far no spike has been monitored but that's not stopping the prognosticators.

https://news.abs-cbn.com/video/news/05/19/22/covid-cases-spike-expected-in-areas-with-low-vaxx-rate-expert

COVID-19 cases in areas with low vaccination rate are expected to rise following the detection of more omicron BA.2.12.1 cases in the country, an infectious disease expert said Thursday.

The government recently announced there are three additional patients with the highly transmissible sublineage of BA.2 in Western Visayas, bringing the total number nationwide to 17. 

The unvaccinated and vulnerable sectors such as the elderly, immunocompromised, and health workers are more susceptible to the respiratory disease, said Dr. Rontgene Solante, a member of the government's vaccine expert panel.

"Ang expectation natin, tataas ang kaso especially (in) those areas na mababa ang vaccination rate. Importante dito, alam natin ang variant or sublineage na 'to ay napakataas ang transmissibility," he said in a televised press briefing.

(We expect cases will increase especially in those areas with low vaccination rate. It's important we know this variant or siblineage has a high transmissibility.)

"There’s a possibility, malaki ang possibility na tumaas ang kaso (there's a big possibility cases will increase), but I don't think it will be enough to affect our hospitalization rate."

Note how there is no mention of an increased death rate but only increased transmission. They aren't even worried about hospitalization rates changing. That's because the death rate remains low. As of this writing out of a population of 109.6 million there have been 3.69 million cases and 60,452 deaths. That means 3.3% of the total population has been infected while only .00005515% of the population has died. Out of those infected .00163826% have died. That as incredibly low rate. It is much lower than the incidence of adverse effects from the vaccine.

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/topstories/nation/831961/only-0-07-experienced-mild-effects-after-covid-19-vaccination-doh/story/

Only 0.07% of individuals vaccinated against COVID-19 have experienced adverse events following immunization, according to the Department of Health.

At a press briefing Tuesday, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said 99.93% did not experience any AEFIs while the 0.07% experienced only mild side effects.

Vergeire said the top reactions were pain on the injection side, headaches or dizziness, rashes, body pain, and a temporary increase in heartbeat.

(These all disappeared quickly. So what are we waiting for? Let us get vaccinated to get protection against COVID-19.)

"These all disappeared quickly?" So what! The fact is that every COVID vaccine is an experimental drug of which the long term effects are not known. Some people have developed heart troubles while others have miscarried and others have died after being injected. But see how they make light of this number which is much higher than the actual death rate? 

The reopening of the world after the pandemic means more Filipino nurses will be going abroad.

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1600023/as-more-countries-reopen-pgh-braces-for-exodus-of-healthcare-workers

The Philippine General Hospital (PGH) expects more of its “skilled” healthcare professionals to quit their jobs to work as overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) as more countries are now reopening, PGH spokesperson Dr. Jose Jonas Del Rosario said Friday.

(Many countries have opened opportunities for healthcare workers. We’re seeing a lot of resignations and some of them are really skilled. Some are operating room nurses, while some work in the ICU — Intensive Care Unit.)

To brace for the expected vacancies, Del Rosario said that the state-owned hospital has been actively recruiting, stressing the willingness of PGH to train nurses with little to no professional experience.

(That’s our problem. In fact, PGH is pleading for nurses to apply. We have a lot of vacancies, not just in the ICU or operating room but also in the wards. They’re actively recruiting so we hope to hire more workers while there’s some peace before a possible [COVID-19] surge…Even if they’re new, we’re willing to train them as long as they apply to PGH.)

It's the calm before the storm right? Wrong. It appears that storm will be staved by the Philippines' wall of immunity.

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/05/23/22/new-subvariants-finding-it-hard-to-get-through-wall-of-immunity-octa

The Philippines' COVID-19 cases are not expected to rise beyond 10,000 new infections daily, independent research group OCTA said Monday. 

The new omicron subvariants are finding it difficult to get through the country's "wall of immunity," according to Prof. Guido David.

The country has so far detected 17 cases of the BA.2.12.1, a sublineage of the dominant BA.2, and one case of the more transmissible BA.4.

    (The BA.4 in Africa caused an increase in cases of up to 10,000 per day. We don't think we will go beyond 10,000. Of course, we're monitoring 2 variants now.)

    (We hope the increase in cases won't reach that high. So far, we can see these variants are finding it difficult to get through our wall of immunity.)

    According to the OCTA this wall of immunity is due to the nation's improved vaccination program which has made the COVID-19 pandemic manageable 
https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1175097

The Covid-19 situation in the country has become manageable due to the government’s intensified and more improved vaccination program, OCTA Research fellow, Dr. Guido David said Monday.

David, speaking at the Laging Handa public briefing, cited the country has a "successful" vaccination program.

“Malaking tulong nito (vaccination) sa pagpapabuti ng kalagayan natin sa bansa. Kung hindi dahil dito baka nagla-lockdown pa din tayo (This has contributed to improving the situation in our country. Without this, we might be imposing lockdowns until now),” he said.

The country’s "wall of immunity" has also been improved by the government’s massive vaccination program, he added.

(Even if there’s an uptick or spike of cases, I think , it would be mostly mild cases),” David said, urging the remaining unvaccinated population to avail of the Covid-19 vaccine for protection against dreaded disease.

Will the government now stop scaring the public about possible surges and lockdowns? The answer of course is no.

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1602323/resurgence-of-virus-is-major-threat-to-domestic-economy-neda-chief

The resurgence of a virus is a major threat to the country’s domestic economy, National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua said Wednesday.

“I think right now, on the domestic economy, the only major threat is a possible resurgence of the virus, whether COVID or something else, but we have learned from our experience that we can manage both the economy and health together,” he said during the Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum.

“The most important thing for me right now is to continue the vaccination program. Our booster vaccination rate is still, I think, one-fourth of the population. So, that is the most important to fast-track,” he shared.

Why would a resurgence of COVID-19 be a major threat to the economy? They have already said they would not resort to nationwide lockdowns. It seems to be more fear mongering to scare people into being injected with an experimental drug.

No comments:

Post a Comment