More news about how the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines is being handled by the public and the government.
Tourist arrivals in this city are expected to return next year to the pre-pandemic level of around 800,000 visitors as monthly events are being planned as attractions.“Our figures in 2019, which was more than 800,000 tourist arrivals, we will probably reach by 2023,” Maria Teresa Manalili, chief tourism operations officer, told the Philippine News Agency (PNA).
As of Wednesday, estimates showed Bacolod could hit more than 500,000 visitors by the end of the year, which is higher than the target of 400,000 visitors set by the Department of Tourism.
“We still have November and December, so we can really hit our target. How much more next year, we will have programs and activities per month,” Manalili said.
Data from the City Tourism Office showed that in 2019, the city had 803,911 visitors, but the figures dropped by -82.19 percent to only 143,114 in 2020, the year Covid-19 pandemic struck and put the global tourism industry to a halt.
In 2021, Bacolod had 147,582 visitors, which slightly increased by 3.12 percent from the 2020 figures.
During the 43rd Masskara Festival in October, at least 184,00 tourists attended the three-week festivity, which was held for the first time since 2019.
“Definitely, the city’s tourism industry has started to recover. If you ask the hotels and restaurants, they were able to recover during the Masskara Festival. It has brought a major impact to tourism as it opened the local economy,” she added.
Dropping all vaccine requirements throughout the nation including mandatory testing for the unvaccinated in places like Boracay will greatly increase tourism arrivals.
The government is still looking for a scapegoat to blame for all the wasted vaccines. Representative Garin says the DOH advisory board is to blame.
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| https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/topstories/nation/852478/rep-garin-says-doh-advisory-council-also-to-blame-for-expired-covid-19-vaccine-doses/story/ |
The Health Technology Assessment Council (HTAC), which advises the Department of Health (DOH) regarding COVID-19 vaccines, should share the blame for the 31 million vaccine doses that expired, Iloilo Representative Janet Garin said Thursday.
(It's a painful truth that every DOH decision must go through HTAC, and there are situations when such is appropriate. However, there are also situations wherein the recommendation has long been delayed that it won’t have weight anymore, just like what happened to COVID-19 vaccines.)
A former DOH secretary, Garin said HTAC’s mandate is to provide recommendations to the DOH in a swift manner -- something, she said, the council failed to do.
According to Garin, while other countries were already administering COVID-19 booster shots, HTAC has yet to decide on when to give booster shots and still waiting on the result of their clinical trials.
“It is really disheartening that such an amount of COVID-19 vaccines expired, although we saw it coming because as early as June and July last year, we were already saying that the first booster should already be administered,” Garin, also a medical doctor, pointed out.
“They still waited it out and only authorized it by December, when a lot of people were already infected and a lot of people already died. Also, they only allowed a second booster when the COVID-19 vaccines were already about to expire.”
Garin also called out HTAC for its supposed flexibility which affected the private sector purchase of the COVID-19 vaccines since they cannot administer the booster shot to their employees without clearance from the DOH, which in turn needs recommendations from HTAC.
“We have been doing things by the book too much, empowering HTAC so much that DOH decisions will have to depend on the council which does not have accountability. As a result, our resources were wasted,” Garin said.
As long as there is a state of emergency no one will know who is to blame because emergency powers give the government carte blanche to order whatever they need with no oversight.
The OCTA says the NCR may see another wave of COVID infections.
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| https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/topstories/nation/852453/ncr-may-see-another-covid-19-wave-with-rising-positivity-rate-octa/story/ |
Another wave of COVID-19 infections may start in the National Capital Region (NCR) with the observed "spike" in its positivity rate, independent monitoring group OCTA Research said Thursday.
OCTA fellow Dr. Guido David reported that NCR’s seven-day COVID-19 positivity rate jumped from 7.4% on November 15 to 9.2% on November 22.
"NCR weekly positivity rate spiked up from 7.4% to 9.2%. Unless these trends do not progress, we could be seeing the start of another wave of infections in the NCR (similar to what we saw in June)," David said on Twitter.
In a Dobol B TV interview, David said that the rising positivity rate in NCR may be an indication of a “surge or mini surge.”
(We cannot say now what the real reason is for the uptick because we have only observed it, and we will still see if it continues. But in other areas, it is not increasing. Although there are areas in which positivity rates have increased.)
But really who cares when the OCTA also says the death rate is down.
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| https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1697796/fwd-octa-average-of-daily-covid-19-deaths-in-ph-down-from-38-to-12 |
The seven-day average of daily coronavirus deaths in the Philippines stood at 12 as of November 21, down from its record from the previous month of 38, independent pandemic monitor OCTA Research Group said.
OCTA fellow Guido David on Friday pointed out the notable dip in daily COVID-19 deaths logged in the country.
“Currently, the seven-day average of COVID deaths is 12 as of November 21, compared with 38 on October 21, 2022,” he said in a social media post.
David also noted that among the 64,524 COVID-19 deaths reported in the country since the onset of the pandemic, 42,260 or 65.5 percent were logged in 2021, while only 13,105 or 20 percent have so far been recorded in 2022.
64,524 is .05% of 110 million people! This is not and never was a pandemic.
The pandemic has greatly stunted students reading abilities.
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| https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1189522 |
The country is celebrating National Book Week from November 24 to 30 amid the struggle to arrest Filipino learners’ dwindling reading proficiency.
Even before the pandemic struck, international large-scale assessments showed that learners were already struggling to meet the minimum required proficiency in reading, according to Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, chair of the Committee on Basic Education.
He pressed the need for programs and interventions that would improve Filipino learners’ proficiency in reading.
“Reading is one of the youth’s foundationS that should be strengthened. More than ever, we should focus on that area as education suffered a lot since the pandemic broke out,” Gatchalian said in a news release on Saturday.
In the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the Philippines scored lowest in Reading out of 79 countries.
The PISA further showed that only one in five Filipino learners aged 15 achieved at least the minimum proficiency level in Overall Reading Literacy.
The 2019 Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics, on the other hand, said only 10 percent of the country’s Grade 5 learners achieved the minimum proficiency at the end of primary education.
The World Bank estimated that as of June, learning poverty in the Philippines is at 90.9 percent.
Learning poverty is defined as the percentage of 10-year-old children who cannot read or understand a simple story.
Gatchalian’s Senate Bill 150 or the Academic Recovery and Accessible Learning (ARAL) Act seeks to institute a nationwide learning recovery program that will include well-systematized tutorial sessions and well-designed remediation plans.
The proposed ARAL Program will prioritize reading to develop the critical and analytical thinking skills of learners.
He also proposed to officially make every November National Reading Month under Senate Bill 475, to be celebrated with nationwide reading programs and activities and inculcate a culture of reading among basic education learners and their communities.
The pandemic restrictions imposed by the government were so bad that the government has to pass a law to get students back on track!
While everyone was forced inside sea life was able to regenerate.
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| https://cebudailynews.inquirer.net/476838/pado-covid-19-restrictions-allowed-marine-resources-in-balicasag-island-to-regenerate |
The pandemic may have affected the lives of many, but it also did some good as it allowed the marine ecosystem in the different dive sites in Panglao town in Bohol province to recover and regenerate.
Just recently, members of the Panglao Association of Dive Operators (PADO) said they again saw in Balicasag Island fish species and other marine resources that they had not seen in years.
“Even if we say that the pandemic has already impacted us so much, but however, it was also a major factor in the regeneration of, or as we call it in the diving industry, the comeback of the old species. Sightings of different species have already been observed and we can show photos of it,” said Joseph Jasper Arcay, adviser and co-founder of PADO.
The quick break from doing outdoor activities that was brought about by pandemic restrictions paired with the continuous imposition of dive regulations in their town did a lot of help for the recovery of their dive sites, Arcay added.
Perhaps these divers want the pandemic restrictions imposed once more in order to keep the wildlife alive. The PNP are blaming the abolition of pandemic restrictions for the rise on the crime.
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| https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1698678/pnp-reminds-public-this-christmas-season-if-we-can-move-freely-so-can-criminals |
With the COVID-19 limits having been loosened, the Philippine National Police (PNP) has issued a warning to the public to be vigilant throughout the holiday season.
During the flag-raising ceremony on Monday, PNP officer-in-charge and Lt. Gen. Rhodel Sermonia said that they expect the public to go all out in celebrating the holiday season, especially after COVID-19 restrictions from 2020 to 2021 prevented people from meeting their relatives.
However, along with those going out for celebrations, Sermonia said this would also be an opportune time for criminals to victimize people.
“In two days’ time, we will be entering the most-anticipated month of the year: December, the Yuletide month. We feel the upcoming Christmas season with longer nights and shorter days […] We all miss this kind of celebration for two years because of the restrictions we imposed to protect our loved ones from COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.
“We are finally free from the fear of getting seriously affected by COVID-19, but I guess we could be better if the people can also feel free from fearing crime. We know that with us being free from the pandemic, criminal minds also celebrate because they are free to victimize people and attempt to keep up with the recovering economy,” he added.
According to Sermonia, this was why they were heeding the orders of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. and PNP chief Gen. Rodolfo Azurin Jr. to set up crime prevention measures to allay the concerns of Filipinos.
The acting PNP chief, who filled in for Azurin, who is on a foreign mission, said it is better to prevent crimes than solve them.
It's not as if the PNP has a great track record in either preventing or solving crimes. Many times they are the culprits!
The COA has threatened the government with disallowing the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines if the DOH continues to keep documents related to the process confidential.
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| https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2022/11/29/2227287/govt-covid-19-vaccine-purchases-risk-coa-disallowance-if-doh-keeps-seal-docs |
The Commission on Audit may issue a notice of disallowance on the government’s procurement of COVID-19 vaccines if the Department of Health would keep the documents related to this confidential, the state auditing body’s chairperson said Tuesday.
While the DOH has asked the COA for an audit of the vaccine procurements, it has also invoked non-disclosure agreements with vaccine manufacturers to keep documents related to their purchase out from the hands of state auditors, COA chairperson Gamaliel Cordoba said.
“The Department of Health po at the time, Secretary [Francisco] Duque [III], wrote to us stating that they will not be able to provide these documents because they have an NDA or non-disclosure agreement with the suppliers,” Cordoba said as he faced a Commission on Appointments panel.
Cordoba said their legal office told them that the COA is not bound by NDAs, so their resident auditor will send a demand letter to the DOH for the documents related to vaccine procurement.
If this is unheeded, Cordoba said the COA itself will write DOH a demand letter.
“If after this, we still get nothing, we have to issue a notice of suspension and go through the process of notice of disallowance. This will continue along with other legal processes, which may include the issuance of a subpoena,” he said.
Even the banks who lended money to the government to procure vaccines want an audit.
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| https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/topstories/nation/852934/adb-wb-demand-special-audit-on-covid-19-vaccine-purchase-coa-chair-cordoba/story/ |
The World Bank (WB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) are already demanding a special audit on the loans they have granted to the Philippine government for the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines, Commission on Audit chairman Gamaliel Cordoba disclosed Tuesday.
The COA chairman made the statement as he committed to ensure a complete audit of the public funds used for the vaccine procurements.
"Your honors, you have our commitment that this government expenditure will be audited especially now that our lenders, World Bank and ADB, seek an special audit," he said.
A special audit is definitely coming sooner rather than later. The only question is how much time it will take toe COA.
Despite fears of a new wave and the emergence of new variants the Philippines' healthcare utilization rate remains low.
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| https://mb.com.ph/2022/11/26/healthcare-utilization-remains-low-amid-detection-of-omicron-subvariant-bq-1-doh/ |
Following the detection of Omicron subvariant BQ.1, the Department of Health (DOH) said that the Philippines’ healthcare utilization rate remains at low-risk category.
“The DOH assured that the country’s healthcare utilization rate remains at low risk.” the state health agency said in a statement on Saturday, Nov. 26.
Hospitals in the country are also prepared in the event that another increase in Covid-19 cases occur, the DOH said.
“Preparatory activities have already been initiated to ensure that triage systems are in place and step-down health facilities are available should an increase in healthcare utilization rates be observed,” it said.
Moreover, the DOH said that all vaccines are effective in preventing death as well as severe and critical Covid-19,regardless of variant.
“As of now, all our vaccines continue to be effective against severe cases caused by detected variants,” said DOH Officer-in-Charge Maria Rosario Vergeire.
“This is why we continue to appeal to our kababayans to get vaccinated and boosted against Covid-19 on top of other layers of protection, to minimize transmission and in effect, the emergence of new variants,” she added.
Vaccines work, death rates are low, and infection rates are also low and these people are still scare mongering about a possible resurgence of the virus. Even if that happened the death rate would still remain low. Remember the current death rate now is 64,524 which is .05% of 110 million people! There is nothing to worry about as long as one keeps himself healthy.
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