More news about how the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines is being handled by the public and the government.
In the face of rising COVID-19 cases the DOH says not to panic but remain cautious.
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| https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1625598/no-need-to-panic-but-be-cautious-doh-says-as-daily-average-climb-to-1535-cases |
With COVID-19 cases in the country on the rise again, the Department of Health (DOH) reminded the public Monday to not panic, but be cautious.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the average new daily infections have risen to 1,535 cases, which is higher than the 1,009 cases recorded the previous week.
(Just from these numbers, we can see that the cases are rising and we should be careful.)
According to Vergeire, the public must understand that “the virus is here to stay” and that new infections should be expected.
(The most important thing is that severe and critical cases are kept at a minimum.)
(Another important thing is we minimize the number of deaths and that our hospitals are not full.)
Deaths have been minimized throughout the pandemic and many of those who died were sick already. There have been 3.7 million cases with only 60 thousand deaths. Not even half of the population has been infected! What is this lady talking about?
This same person has been appointed the DOH Officer-in-Charge.
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| https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2022/07/14/2195379/vergeire-designated-dohs-officer-charge |
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has designated Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire as the officer-in-charge of the department.
In a briefing Thursday, Press Secretary Trixie Cruz-Angeles said Vergeire’s designation as officer-in-charge can be extended if the chief executive cannot appoint a DOH secretary by July 31.
According to Marcos’ first memorandum circular, officers-in-charge shall perform the duties of a top official until July 31, or until a replacement has been designated, whichever comes first.
Why hasn't Marcos appointed a DOH Secretary yet? He's had plenty of time and one would think that if we are int he midst of a serious pandemic that he would have made it a priority. Maybe there is no pandemic??
One expert says the worst is over.
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| https://mb.com.ph/2022/07/14/worst-of-covid-19-pandemic-over-due-to-vaccination-salvana/ |
An infectious disease expert believes that the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic is already over as several people are now vaccinated against the viral disease.
Dr. Edsel Salvana said that even though coronavirus cases currently has “tripled” because of the Omicron and its subvariants, the number of deaths is “nowhere near” than what was recorded during the surge last year which was driven by the Delta variant.
“In terms of death and severe disease, I think that the worst is over because of vaccination,” said Salvana on Thursday, July 14.
Salvana said that during the Delta surge, the country’s vaccination rate was still low.
“All things taken into consideration, the worst variant is really Delta. Lalong-lalo na doon sa Pilipinas, doon talaga pinakamaraming namatay and muntik nang bumagsak yung ating healthcare system (Especially in the Philippines, wherein several people died and our healthcare system almost collapsed),” he said.
At present, a large number of Filipinos are already vaccinated against the disease, said Salvana.
“Mataas na yung antas ng ating pagbabakuna bagama’t kinakailangan talaga natin habulin yung boosting (The level of our vaccination is already high although there is a need for our booster coverage to catch up),” said Salvana.
“Because of vaccination, we don’t expect it to cause us much destruction and death as Delta did,” he added.
Despite this, Salvana said that the threat of Covid-19 still remains. This is because of the ability of the Covid-19 virus to mutate.
Is this person kidding? Are we reading the same statistics? Only 3.7 million have been infected and 60 thousand died and those deaths cannot be attributed solely to COVID-19 with comorbidites being factored in. The destruction that came from the pandemic was when the government shut down the entire nation.
We have been inundated with news about a surge coming but now one expert says there will be many tiny surges or "small waves" throughout the year.
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| https://news.abs-cbn.com/video/news/07/18/22/small-waves-of-covid-19-cases-possible-until-end-2022 |
If this is normal and is to be expected then why all the hand wringing? Maybe because of mutations?‘Small waves’ of increases in COVID-19 cases are possible in the Philippines until the last quarter of 2022, an expert said Monday.Professor Jomar Rabajante of the University of the Philippines (UP) Pandemic Response Team said this is due to waning immunity and the increasing mobility of Filipinos.The Philippines on Sunday recorded 2,560 new COVID-19 cases, the fourth straight day that new cases breached the 2,000-mark.(If, for example, we see a decline in new cases next week, we must not be complacent, because based on our projections and simulations, this increasing-decreasing pattern, these small ripples may continue until the last quarter of 2022.)(We see small waves like this in the coming months. That's because our population is now more mobile and borders are open. Some Filipinos are leaving, some are coming back, and immunity is waning because some have not gotten their booster shots yet.)The professor said government must not resort to lockdowns in order to curb these small spikes in COVID-19 cases.(We must not go back to the ways we fought COVID in 2020. It's 2020, going on 2023, we must apply the lessons we have learned.)Instead, schools and workplaces must be made safe for students and employees, he said.(We need to have healthy and safe schools, because schools and universities are opening. We need to have healthy and safe workplaces, we need to have proper ventilation and isolation facilities for the sick.)(This is not just about COVID, we also have dengue now. If other diseases emerge in the future, we need to maintain our healthy practices.)
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| https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1630508/for-posting-edited-unending-mutation-of-the-covid-virus-brings-a-new-creature-ba-2-75 |
Over three years into the pandemic, cases of COVID-19 continue to ramp up globally as SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes it, continues to mutate and evolve with the newest strain: BA.2.75.
Based on records by World Health Organization (WHO), BA.2.75, BA.2 sub-lineage or a sub-variant of the Omicron variant, was first documented in India in May this year and has been spreading quickly ever since.
The newly-discovered sub-variant, according to WHO, has so far been detected in 10 countries and is categorized by the WHO as a sub-variant under monitoring, along with six other Omicron sub-variants.
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| https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1630501/1-6-million-covid-19-vaccines-to-expire-in-august-concepcion |
Some 1.6 million vaccines against COVID-19 purchased by the private sector are set to expire in August, resulting in hundreds of millions of pesos being thrown away, Go Negosyo founder Joey Concepcion said Tuesday.At about $10 per dose, Concepcion said AstraZeneca and Moderna are among the vaccines included in the batch.
“By mid-August, about 1.6 million private-sector vaccines will expire. [Therefore,] we’re looking at hundreds of millions of pesos that the private sector will lose because these vaccines are expiring,” Concepcion said in a Pandesal forum.
To prevent the wastage, Concepcion renewed his appeal to the Health Technical Advisory Council (HTAC) to allow the general public to receive a second booster shot.
“The sense of urgency is quite not there. The private sector and the government is trying to do their best, but there’s a body that is somehow moving quite slow,” he said.
He noted how the vaccines were bought from the United States, which is already giving the second booster to their residents.
“If the Americans are the ones who invented these vaccines and then we bought [these] from them, shouldn’t we follow what CDC (Center for Disease Control) is doing? It’s the same thing,” Concepcion said.
Second booster? Millions have not even received their first booster!
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| https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1630212/doh-aims-for-23m-booster-shots-in-bongbong-marcos-first-100-days |
With the public being hesitant to get a first booster are these numbers even realistic? Not only is theft on the rise now that COVID restrictions have been eased but all this worrying about a virus with a 99% survival rate has caused the spread of OCD.The Department of Health (DOH) aims to administer at least 23 million COVID-19 booster shots within President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s first 100 days in office, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, the officer in charge of the department, said on Monday.
President Ferdinand Marcos himself said in a meeting with Vergeire that he would want the DOH to make the booster shots more accessible, the DOH OIC said on Monday in an interview on ABS-CBN’s “TeleRadyo.”
According to Vergeire, the president “values the evidence that the first booster will really up the immunity of the population.”
“So throughout the conversation or the meeting, he was also really trying to relate our condition; how moving forward as a country we will respond [to the pandemic]; if and when we can be able to improve our booster coverage and [how] we’ll be able to confidently say: We can loosen or remove restrictions,” Vergeire said in Filipino.
“If we’re able to achieve that in these 100 days, then that’s when we can talk if we can have new or further easing of restrictions,” she said.
The aim of the DOH is to give booster shots to only half of the 55 million full-vaccinated individuals – not to the entire eligible population.
“It’s not really realistic for the first 100 days, but at least we’re targeting 50 percent,” Vergeire said.
That means that, for 100 days, there should be 397,000 to 400,000 people vaccinated each day.
So far, only 15 million people have been given booster shots.
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| https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/07/19/22/disinfecting-until-it-hurts-ocd-cases-rise-as-covid-19-lingers |
Bongbong has decided to retain the current alert level restrictions until new ones can be written.People have gotten more observant of COVID-19 protocols like the 20-second hand washing rule, but those with OCD do more than what is required because avoiding their compulsive hand washing or sanitation would consequently make them spiral into thoughts of death and the possibility of contaminating their loved ones.
People without OCD have also started developing symptoms of the illness during the onset of the pandemic, said Dr. Rucelle Zuniega, a psychiatrist from In-touch, a private psychiatric service provider in the Philippines.
“Aside from the people with OCD experiencing exacerbation of their symptoms, many also experience emergence of new symptoms focused on COVID-19. So, health-related yung symptoms nila and particularly health related sa Covid,” she said.
This was affirmed by a March 2022 systematic review published by the Frontiers in Psychiatry where it was stated that “people both with and without diagnosed OCD prior to the pandemic generally experienced a worsened landscape of symptoms of OCD during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
There is no word on what those restrictions might look like but perhaps they should do away with them altogether seeing as the death rate remains spectacularly low.President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. retained the COVID-19 Alert Level System for now, Malacañang said in a statement released Tuesday.
Marcos however is seeking the reclassification of restrictions which would be more compatible with the current milder strains of the coronavirus, it added.
The President also said the alert level could be adjusted or improved if more people receive COVID-19 vaccine booster shots.
“To avoid confusion, we will retain the alert level system for now. We are however thinking, we are studying very closely, and we’ll come to a decision very soon as to decoupling the restrictions from the alert levels,” he said when he met with Department of Health (DOH) Officer-In-Charge Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire.
Marcos met with DOH officials on Monday to discuss COVID-19 and the government's response to the disease.
The DOH can craft new classifications by the second week of August, Vergeire said.
Mid-August is a suitable time to loosen up classifications as this would give the medical community time to make COVID-19 cases more manageable, at the same time allaying their fears, Vergeire said.
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| https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2022/07/14/2195377/surge-wears-on-senate-urged-look-pending-covid-19-concerns |
The Senate may need to convene the Committee of the Whole once the 19th Congress opens to discuss pending concerns on the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines, Sen. Nancy Binay said Thursday morning.
"When the 19th Congress opens, we can convene the Committee of the Whole just to go back to pending issues and concerns regarding COVID-19, like vaccination programs, access to boosters, status of our healthcare workers, health and pandemic statistics, level of preparedness, [and] exit plans,” Binay said in mixed Filipino and English in a statement sent to reporters.
This comes as calls to require Filipinos, especially the general popultion, to get booster shots continue to resound amid another surge in COVID-19 cases, with the country recording an average of 1,467 cases daily from the week of July 4 to 10.
The Department of Health has warned that the ongoing surge could hit its peak of up to 11,000 new infections by the end of July, with increased hospital admissions by August to September.
"Right now, everyone's experiencing pandemic fatigue and vaccine complacency. Because of the recent decrease in cases, people have become less vigilant,” the senator said.
"I support the recommendation for the third shot (booster), but the DOH should be more aggressive in reaching those in priority groups and intensify the vaccination campaign in isolated and remote areas. What is important is that we all agree that the paramount concern is to be fully protected from the virus."
The senator also asserted the need to continue revisiting and reviewing the country’s public health policies to ensure these are up-to-date and in line with international standards.
"The way I see it, at the end of the day, we need to always revisit the science behind our every decision on matters of public health like having a common index and definition of what 'fully vaccinated' is or should be na compliant and aligned sa World Health Organization or similar internationally-recognized and respected organizations,” said Binay.
