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By Daisy CL Mandap
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| The Research Institure of Tropical Medicine (RITM) is where many Covid-19 patients in the Philippines are treated |
The number of new Covid-19 cases in the Philippines
This was nearly double the previous day’s record-high of 539
new cases.
But even as the infection rate mounts, President Rodrigo
Duterte announced that the country’s strict lockdown, regarded as the longest
in the world, will be eased by next month.
Several areas including Metro Manila, Cagayan
Valley , Central Luzon and Calabarzon, the
provinces of Albay and Pangasinan; as well as Davao City
This means, most businesses will be allowed to open and
public transportation will return in a limited form.
In disclosing the latest Covid-19 figures, Health
Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, said only 46 were “fresh” cases while
1,000 were “late” cases, meaning the test results were released to patients
after four days or longer.
Vergeire said there could be a further spike in the number
of new cases being reported by next week, as more personnel have been hired to
encode and validate cases.
She said that even with yesterday’s record daily tally, only 20% or 109 of the cases were newly validated.
But she did not explain why there has been a huge backlog in
the release of the test results in the first place.
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| The UP-PGH Covid team with recovered patient, journalist Howie Severino, who donated blood plasma |
Her statement was immediately dismissed by medical experts,
including Dr Gene Nisperos, an associate professor at the University of the
Philippines Manila.
“Mali
(That’s wrong. Those 430 cases should have been included in
the numbers last week. So it means the numbers last week should already been
high, and not just today. And since there is still a backlog, those 109 ‘fresh
cases’ should be even higher because what you should be reporting today won’t
be known until next week. You’re trying to make us look stupid)
In a subsequent post, he said: “In the first place, the DOH
should have fixed its system so that there will be no backlog cases! These are
every bit essential to informed decision-making.
“It is hard to believe that an entire government agency can
be THIS incompetent. The bigger possibility is that its leaders are already
manipulating the data to fit the Duterte regime's narrative,” he said.
People who get tested for the coronavirus in the Philippines
are promised a result of no later than four days, which is far longer than in
many countries, where the result of a swab test is released in a matter of
hours, or one day.
Despite this, many of those tested, particularly overseas
Filipino workers, have been made to wait not just weeks, but even months,
before they could get their results.
The Philippines
DOH figures show that as of May 28, a total of 305,115
individuals have been tested, out of a population of more than 100 million, or
just over 3%. The only countries in Asia that have lower test rates are Indonesia,
Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Timor-Leste, Laos,
Afghanistan and Yemen.
The number of recoveries has also been relatively low, at
just 3,720 or 22% of the total infections so far. The fatality rate of 942
amounts to 5% of the overall figure.
