🇵🇭 The worst it has ever been

The Philippines posts record daily new cases week on week

March 26, 2021

Hello friends!

I don’t know about where you are, but where I am people have started saying things like ‘...back in COVID times…’ I feel like I’m losing my mind! Being lucky doesn’t mean being through it. Probably also something in that about this disconnect Australia has physically and culturally with the rest of the world, but we’ll leave that to Meanjin writers. 

We are still very much in it, I like to chide people on the phone when they say it. And today’s look from the Philippines shows just how deeply parts of the world are ‘in it.’

K. Srinath Reddy, who heads up the Public Health Foundation of India, says the pandemic there isn’t the surprise on day five of a test that many in Indian media are comparing it to. “We are still very much in the middle of the match. In fact, we started playing this game not as a test match but as though it's a T20, and thought the game was over.” Wise words surely applicable to the rest of the planet — assuming they understand the metaphor! 

Much like the beginning of the test, the pandemic looks starkly different across the region. While Singapore’s new cases are largely confined to hotel-bound arrivals after a devastating few months of COVID-19 tearing through migrant worker communities, Cambodia is only now reporting the first handful of deaths a full year into the pandemic.

Indonesia, after leading Asia in cases at one stage, is reportedly having immense success in the early stages of the vaccine roll-out. In Myanmar, the pandemic has been all but ignored after the coup and resulting uprising erupted as the country was undergoing a shocking second wave. 

In the Philippines, things were bad last March and have stayed bad. 

Read on and keep the Philippines in your thoughts if you’re as lucky as me writing this in a cafe at the mall maskless, tricked into thinking it’s behind us.

Last week, the Philippines posted a new record daily high with 7,103 new cases. That was just ahead of the previous daily high of 6,958 last August. That was beaten again a couple of days later and just yesterday the Health Ministry reported 8,773 new cases.

CNN Philippines reports this puts the country dangerously close to 100,000 active cases — at 99,891 I’d expect that to tip over this evening. Thankfully, the Ministry says at least 95 percent of those cases have mild symptoms. 

Local leaders and senators are pushing for states of calamity to be introduced in hot spots, much like the municipal council of Roxas in Isabela province did this week. The local government says a 441.7 percent jump in cases between Feb 18 and March 18 is behind the move.  

In addition to Metro Manila, surrounding provinces have been hit with tighter restrictions on movement and the snap suspension of gatherings above 10 people etc. I don’t want to (or maybe can’t?) get too much into the restrictions here because it all became a meme and I have once again been totally perplexed by Pinoy Twitter. 

In Manila City, Mayor Isko Moreno has empowered barangay leaders to declare full lockdowns on their neighbourhoods on a needs basis. 

Meanwhile, public health officials have sounded the alarm on supplies. Medications used to treat COVID-19 have dwindled. "The remaining supplies being used by hospitals are donations from the WHO (World Health Organization)," a Department of Health statement said. "If additional supplies do not arrive and considering the current trend of infection, supplies may only last for another two weeks at most."

And then there are the vaccines! The roll-out had a slow start in the Philippines and hasn’t been helped at all by greedy, well-connected people (who surely have the option to work from home). Five mayors have been ordered to explain why they got to skip the queue ahead of healthcare workers — showing their community it’s ‘safe’ seems to be a popular excuse, though the millions of people who have been vaccinated abroad safely probably mute that. 

“I hope we all guard our vaccines so that we can appropriately give [them] to those people who [need them most]. Let’s not take the vaccines meant for the people who are supposed to safeguard our lives,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said yesterday at a press conference, as reported by the Inquirer. 

And then there’s the South China Sea, but we’ll save that for the Monday premium!

Reading list:

The government has limited travel into and out of the capital and surrounding regions -- the nation’s main economic engines -- for about two weeks, but movement within the area will remain unimpeded. The pandemic has throttled the country’s economy, which is tipped to remain in recession this quarter.

Forced to stay indoors, Maturan says she copes by staying on social media, which she says is almost as good as hanging out with her friends again. She just misses going to the mall with them or visiting their houses.

Maturan is more worried about her sisters, one aged 10 and the other, six.

“They are getting so bored here in the house. When you’re a child, you want to play outside. Now they just cling to their gadgets, playing mobile games,” Maturan said.

Despite the president’s epiphany and the collective groans of a nation, public services only offer Covid tests for those with symptoms. In private establishments, the cheapest reliable tests are priced at about $52, equivalent to a fifth of a minimum wage earner’s salary in the capital. 

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