Joining hands against Covid-19
The emerging threat of Delta Variant which, according to health experts is highly contagious and easily transmissible strikes an additional fear, anxieties and heart throbbing effect to the peoples of the world and of course to the Filipino People. In fact the Department of Health in its recent statement admits that the rising cases of Covid-19 are caused by the Delta variant.
Good enough, President
Duterte has responded promptly to the problem by mobilizing all branches of government to suppress the surging of this particular deadly disease. The Inter Agency Task Force (IATF) Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) and Metro Manila Mayors have agreed to put NCR under ECQ. I understand ECQ is lowered to MECQ but still going in and out of NCR Plus is strictly prohibited.
This spikes another setback on our economy. Mr. Joey Concepcion presidential adviser on entrepreneurship and Mr. Sergio Ortiz Cruz, Jr. President of ECOP has explicitly expressed his disappointment over the continuous lockdowns in NCR Plus and other regions, saying that more lockdowns will result in an imaginable loss on our already precarious economy.
Businesses like restaurants, salons, beauty parlors, barbershops, games of sports, constructions, transportations and movie houses have suffered insurmountable losses. I hope that the national government would exert more efforts massively to end the miseries, sacrifices and hardship
of the Pilipinos. May I also urge religious private and social organizations to close ranks under the most trying time to comply strictly with health protocols like wearing facemasks and face shields in public and observe social di st anci ng.
In doing so, I am quite confident that at the end of the day we will succeed and eventually achieve our paramount purpose to heal as one.
*****
In another development, a few days ago, I decided to go out of my residence here in Magalang to buy some grocery items for our needs.
This brings the number of confirmed cases in the province to some 34,543. The DOH tracker also puts the number of active cases at 3,709. Of the number of confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic, some 29,805 have already recovered.
The DOH data showed that some 1,209 cases have died of the virus since last year. Some 72 people in Pampanga have died of the virus in the last 14 days.
Pampanga had recorded some 4,580 new cases in the last 14-days. The drastic increase in cases have brought the total bed occupancy of health facilities in the province to 85.1 percent. This means that only 211 of the 1,419 beds in the province remain vacant.
Twenty-two of the 47 health facilities in Pampanga are now at critical levels while six are at high risk of no longer being able to admit new patients.