Questionable Covid-19 priority

By Herbert Vego

COVID-19 is no respecter of the rich and famous, as we found out anew yesterday on learning that the disease had killed Gideon “Ike” Patricio — former mayor of Pilar, Capiz – while confined in a Roxas City hospital for 10 days.

As of yesterday, based on the Covid “worldometer” released online by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Philippines’ had accumulated 1,262,273 cases, including 21,732 deaths.

Unfortunately, in one year and three months that Filipinos have lived and died with the pandemic, the Food and Drug  Administration (FDA) has yet to approve a medicine for Covid-19, thus giving the impression that the disease has no cure.

The Department of Health (DOH) has only succeeded in scaring the people into going out to get vaccinated, imparting the wrong notion that it would prevent them from catching and spreading the disease.

What a pity that our health authorities have not reached out to Covid survivors for information on how they beat the disease!

With that information, in addition to its own study, the FDA could have determined which drugs to approve for doctors’ prescription.

Why blame the social media for questioning the government’s P82.5-billion vaccination program? It is no joke that world-renowned virologists and physicians openly doubt in video presentations the efficacy of “premature” vaccines developed within one year. It normally takes five years or more to do it.

Our health officials are so busy relying on vaccines that they forget that the already infected don’t need them; what they need to get well are curative medicines.

The truth of the matter is that hospital patients are now being treated in hospitals with expensive, non-FDA-approved drugs – Remdesivir and Favipiravir, for examples – as long as they sign a waiver absolving the hospital of accountability in case of untoward consequences.

There are already Filipino doctors who secretly prescribe is a cheaper “cure,” Ivermectin. They say it could double as both cure and prophylaxis.

Ivermectin in tablet form, incidentally, has been approved and used in New Delhi, India since April 20, 2021.

Are we following suit?

Well, President Duterte has ordered the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and the DOH to conduct an eight-month study to determine the effectiveness of ivermectin against COVID-19.

Unnecessary? Perhaps, but the P22-million budget for that study would make their personnel laugh on the way to the bank.

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LOCKDOWNS UNNECESSARY

With due respect to local government officials, their repetitious impositions of lockdowns or community quarantines have done more harm than good.

While driving around Iloilo City the other day – on modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) until June 15 – I could only wonder whether the city could still live up to Mayor Jerry Treñas “level up” promise. Very few public vehicles were on the road; and the malls were aching for shoppers.

If lockdowns  with its restrictions on public mobility were the solution to the pandemic, why the persistent rise in Covid cases?

Methinks that the rise in Covid cases ought not derail the economy as long as the basic protocols – face shielding/masking, social distancing, and hand sanitation – are properly enforced.

You must have heard of Dr. David Navarro, the World Health Organization’s special envoy for Covid-19. In a BBC-TV interview, he said, “We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus.”

He warned that lockdowns would result in a doubling of world poverty, where people are not getting enough food because they could not afford it. Common sense tells us that hunger could cause fatal diseases, including Covid. As to how, it could weaken a person’s natural defense, his immune system.

“The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted,” Dr. Nabarro said. “But by and large, we’d rather not do it.”

The other day, I heard a beauty-parlor entrepreneur lament on Bombo Radyo that he could no longer sustain his failing business. Shutdowns deplete his meager resources. He could not cope with basic necessities, and was still looking for money to pay this month’s power and water bills.

Millions of other entrepreneurs and their dislocated employers have the same misfortune.

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‘TENDER LOVING CARE’ PERSONIFIED

ON her shoulders rest the responsibility of  “caring” for the more than 75,000 customers of MORE Power, Iloilo City’s power distribution utility. This winsome lady executive is Ma. Cecilia “Maricel” C. Pe, head of the utility’s customer care department.

An Ilongga, she finished high school at the University of San Agustin (1989) and graduated in 1993 with a degree in Business Management at the Colegio del Sagrado Corazon de Jesus, where she was a dean’s lister.

Maricel had previously worked as a teller at a Union Bank branch, moved on to higher posts at Philam Bank, Sanicare Products Asia, and Tanduay Distillers.

As head of the customer care department, she has around 80 subordinates in three divisions — customer service, corporate communications and corporate social responsibility.

At this time when  the city is under modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) until June 15, she has to play a “balancing act” that would keep company-customer relations harmonious.

She told us yesterday that in view of restrictions aimed at quelling the rise of Covid cases, the company would suspend service disconnection of consumers with arrears while Iloilo City is under MECQ.

A 30-day grace period for bills between May 23 to June 15 means that customers would not be imposed surcharges for delayed payments.

Thereafter disconnections would resume, but only after delinquent payers would have received a disconnection notice.

Reconnection, on the other hand, would take effect within 24 hours after payment of arrears.