Out of control

By Artchil B. Fernandez

 

The country is finding itself in serious trouble at present a little over a year after the Covid-19 pandemic broke out. It appears the pandemic is out of control for, within a week, record of daily cases of infection is being smashed on an almost daily basis.

On March 26, 2021, a new record of daily infections was set when cases reached 9,838.  The trend is grim considering that last year’s highest figure (6,958 recorded on August 10, 2020) was broken seven days before, when daily cases hit 7,103 breaching the 7,000 mark for the first time.

The March 26 record was again shattered a day after. On March 29, 2021, daily infections for the first time went beyond 10,000 as 10,016 Filipinos tested positive for the virus.

Looking at the current pattern of infection, the March 29 record is bound to be broken again. The number of Filipinos infected with Covid-19 is now more than 700,000. The latest data (as of this writing) reveal there are now 741,181 Filipinos with Covid-19, 13,191 of them died of the disease and active cases are at 124,680. If the 9,000 to 10,000 daily cases will not significantly go down in the coming days, by the end of April more than a million Filipinos will get Covid-19.

A gloomy prospect confronts Filipinos in the coming days unless the pandemic is brought to a manageable level as soon as possible. Consider the fact that in the past seven days 60,102 Filipinos contracted the virus.  This shows the gravity of the current situation which could get worse. The hospital situation in the National Capital Region (NCR) illustrates the bleak scenario staring at the nation.

Take the case of former president Erap Estrada who is among the latest public figures who contacted Covid-19. His son former senator JV Ejercito shared that his father spent a day in the emergency area before getting a room. If a rich and influential person has to wait for 24 hours before being admitted to a pricey hospital, just imagine the situation of poor Filipinos now swamping overwhelmed public hospitals in NCR and nearby areas.

Hospitals in Metro Manila, the epicenter of the serious surge now ravaging the country has declared they already reached full capacity. Some hospitals like the Gat Andres Bonifacio Memorial Medical Center in Manila City informed the public it is currently operating at 124.44 percent capacity.

The latest positivity rate of the country stands at 23 percent. This means that for every five Filipinos tested for Covid-19, one gets a positive result. The Philippine Red Cross (PRC) reported that its latest data show “1,967 out of 12,075 tests conducted were positive.”

A year into the pandemic how did the country finds itself in this quagmire? With a year of experience and lessons learned, the Philippines should be in a much better position compared to the start of the pandemic. Instead, the country is not only back to square one, but its situation is also much worse than the time the pandemic broke out.

Du30 and his officials blamed the current predicament of the country to the mutation of the virus. “It’s because the virus mutated: there’s now the UK, South African, Brazilian, and even the Philippine variant” was Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque’s response to the criticism attributing the present surge to the incompetence of the administration.

It is the nature of the virus to mutate, and this is a known scientific fact a long time ago.  Mutation is given and therefore cannot be used as an excuse for the surge. The question is what did Du30 and his officials do or have done to counter, manage, handle or deal with the mutation which they already know even before the pandemic broke out. Did they prepare for the mutation with a plan for what to do once the inevitable happens?

This is the root cause of the scary and frightening situation Filipinos are in a year into the pandemic. Du30 and his officials failed to craft a comprehensive plan on how to manage the pandemic which explains their incoherent, careless and directionless handling of the health crisis.

Dr. Tony Leachon, a former adviser to the government’s coronavirus task force attributed the present serious surge to the epic failure of leadership. “This is about 80 percent leadership problem,” he sums up the situation. “I think we are back to square one but worse than last year given that our problems are not only COVID but we also have non-COVID cases right now,” he added.

The colossal failure of Du30 to put in place the structure for the most basic pandemic handling – mass testing and contact tracing, explains why the Covid-19 pandemic in the country is getting out if not already out of control. While Du30 appointed testing and contact tracing czars, there is no comprehensive plan and structure for them. Due to the absence of mass testing and contact tracing plan/program, the government is blind to the extent and depth of the spread of the virus among communities. The government merely reacts to the spike instead of preventing it. Had there been an effective or even a functional mass testing and contact tracing programs, a pro-active stance vis-a-vis spike of infections could have been taken thus mitigating the impact of sporadic breakouts.

That the Du30 administration miserably failed to do mass testing and efficient contact tracing after a year of dealing with the pandemic is testament to its incompetence, ineptness and laziness. As a result, the pandemic is now spiraling out of control.

While Philippine ASEAN neighbors like Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam are slowly returning to normality, the country on the other hand, is in deep trouble with the pandemic getting out of hand and running amok.  Du30’s leadership failure is likely to doom the Philippines, pushing the country into a dark and terrifying future.