Philippines ‘managing well’ crisis as COVID-19 cases soar
MANILA: Although the country has breached the grim one million mark in the number of confirmed COVID-19 infections, the people should focus more on the “positive” aspects amid government determination to prevent its further spread, according to the presidential spokesman.
In particular, Harry Roque cited as significant examples from the grim statistics the high recovery rate of patients as well as the low death toll from the pandemic that continues to wreak havoc on the people and the economy.
“Let us not just look into the one million cases,” Roque told a media briefing. “First, ( more than) 900,000 have recovered so the active cases are (less than) 100,000. The surge in cases is not only happening in the Philippines.”
On Monday, the Department of Health (DOH) reported that the country’s national tally breached the one million mark, or exactly 1,006,428 from new confirmed COVID-19 infections of 8,929.
The DOH added the death toll climbed to 16,853 from 70 new fatalities but even more significant was that recoveries had soared to 914,952 from 11,333 survivors.
Also as of Monday, Roque noted that the Philippines ranked No.26 in the world in the total number of COVID-19 cases and No.21 in total recoveries as he pointed out: “So, I don’t think it is negative reflection. On the other hand, based on our world rankings, we can see we are managing ( even with) the new variants rather well.”
Supporting Roque was the embatled Health
Secretary Francisco Duque whose ouster has repeatedly been demanded by lawmakers for his alleged failure to stop the surge in virus infections.
But President Rodrigo Duterte ignored such demands and told Duque to stay put.
“If there is anything that is worth mentioning at this point is the number of recoveries,” Duque said even as the daily number of new cases had remained high over the past few weeks.
At the same time, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire expressed doubt on the government aim to achieve herd immunity by October this year mainly due to the lack of vaccines.
“For now, I can honestly say it is still not possible based n the supplies,” Vergeire told CNN Philippines in an interview. Earlier, Carlito Galvez, the vaccine czar, said the government aimed to achieve herd immunity by inoculating 70 million or 70 percent of the 110 million Filipinos by October.