Are we on the 2nd wave of COVID-19?

By Art Jimenez

In Part 1 of this column, Senator Kiko Pangilinan pointed to several contradictions that made the DOH preposterous claim that we were already on the second wave of COVID-19 (Covid) exactly that… preposterous.

One, the first wave supposedly broke in January 2020 when three Chinese from Wuhan, China were hospitalized and detected to be Covid-infected. Though a small wave –even a wavelet- still it was a wave, DOH insisted. That wave crested on March 31 with a record-high 538 new cases, followed by a long trough until May 20 when a Senate hearing heard Health Secretary Duque almost nonchalantly averred we were already in the second wave of Covid.

After a tsunami of an uproar, the DOH backtracked and “clarified” the country was still in the “first major wave of sustained community transmission,” a supposed clarification, which to me was nothing but gobbledygook.

If we were in the second wave or that “first major wave,” how could DOH claim they were already “flattening the curve?” Also around that time of self-breast beating, the DOH admitted we sorely lacked adequate healthcare system capacity, such as including but not limited to test kits, testing laboratories, Covid-dedicated hospital facilities, personal protective equipment (PPEs), protective surgical masks, and so on.

And third, why did not Sec. Duque so warn the country was already on its second wave after March 31 and that we even outraced the whole world working desperately to avoid a second wave?

And as Senator Kiko pointed out, DOH claimed on May 19 the curve was flattening, and yet just the following day, “we are now on the second wave? Kataka-taka!”

Another. “On March 20, DOH said “hindi pa kailangan ang mass testing.” And just 11 days later on March 31, Covid confirmed cases peaked at 538.

On testing, the DOH informed the country it could test up to 30,000 persons per day by end-May or starting June. Unfortunately, the 30 thousand turned out to be a mere estimated testing capacity, not actual capacity.

Enter the two hyperactive non-physician White Knights that could save the day: Senator Richard Gordon, concurrently chair of the Philippine Red Cross and Mr. Vivencio Dizon, Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) president and CEO.

Gordon is a lawyer from UP and an Ateneo alumnus of history and government. Dizon is an Economics and commerce graduate of de La Salle U and owns a Master’s degree in Development Economics at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom.

Gordon put his money where his mouth is in mobilizing PRC and its benefactors as they will install 20 PCR testing machines in different regions in the next fortnight to test 1.6 million persons in the next two months or so.

Unlike the DOH, Gordon claims PRC has no backlogs in testing and releasing testing results.

Dizon was appointed deputy chief implementer of the National Task Force against COVID-19 and chief coordinator of the public-private Task Force T3 (Test, Trace, and Treat). In addition, Dizon is also Presidential Adviser for Flagship Programs and Projects, that’s at the forefront of President Duterte’s “Build, Build, Build Infrastructure Program.”

Dizon’s first task is to make operational four “mega swabbing sites” operational soonest. These are the Philippine Arena in Bulacan, SM MOA Areana in Pasay City, Enderun Tent in Taguig City, and Palacio de Manila in Malate, Manila.

Their immediate goal is to test all returning OFWs in quarantine and transport them immediately by boat and plane to their respective provinces once proven free of Covid infection.

They could build some 287 new test centers in the four sites to do, at full capacity, 50,000 tests daily at 175 average tests per center.

These could, in the end, take care of the backlog of test results and the targeted 2 percent of the population.

In the meantime, the latest DOH backlog test results have shot up the number of new cases to newer highs in the last few days alone, to wit: May 28^th, 539 new cases; May 29^th, 1,046; May 30^th, 590; and May 31^st, 862 cases.

And we don’t hear Sec Duque say we are “flattening the curve” nor we are now in the second wave of the pandemic.