Rizal Philippines
March 31, 2020
From the way it looks we have none. The way we deal with the Covid 19, as all countries are, all is on ad hoc basis by the seat of the pants. And yet we witnessed the Outbreak, Pandemic movies. We saw the speech of Bill Gates prophesying that future wars will be fought with bio weapons, not nuclear weapons, and yet we did not pay attention to a future or present reality.
What was the reaction of the President to the Virus veeruz as he says, "duduraan" niya, a funny way of assessing a serious and deadly situation, but reflects our pride and hubris vs certain events that might happen
Do we have a health care plan for epidemics
None. Why none? We as a tropical country is subject to epidemics: cholera, dengue. TB, and all other exotic diseases. The Sub Saharan African countries were hit by Ebola (the disease that hit USA in "Outbreak"
The late Senator Myriam Defensor Santiago proposed HB 1573 "An Act Strengthening Naitonal Preparedness and Response to Public Health Emergencies" as early as 7 years ago, still at committee level on the preparedness of the country vs pandemic. Why does nobody pays attention to this. (After reading the bill, I noticed that it lacked details on how the act shall be implemented. Maybe somebody would work on this) ) RA 11332 enumerated more details on reporting of and containment of Public Health Emergencies. But a lot more details would have to be inputted on the said law
Pandemic and All Hazards Preparedness act This act even calls for reserve force similar to that of Citizen Army.
One of the experts on said infectious diseases who worked for WHO is former Sec of Health Manuel Dayrit .And right now he is being interviewed frequently as a resource person on epidemic
Our disaster preparedness and NDRMCC action on Taal Volcano is admireable.
Much is still be desired on the way we handled CoVid 19
1. Too late a response? We could have done the lockdown in February?
2. Too soon to little preparation?
Many were caught by surprise and many loopholes gaps in the execution were the order of the day:
1. Communication to the ground commander
2. Conflicts in the order:
1. Essential services employees could not get to work - even doctors and nurses
2. Free flow of food and essential commodities - the checkpoint mentality still persisted
in the minds of police force and military; hence food supplies became scarce
3. Schedule in going to the market What was to be prevented: people getting close to one another
was not lessened; it increased;
4. Delays or absence of i food distribution. The lockdown procedure in other countries meant that people could not go to the market and groceries and hence food and other provisions must be delivered to
the residents. This could lead to riots if people are in lockdown and people have nothing to eat.
3. Lockdown or mass testing ?
Other countries did not have to resort to the cruel and harsh lockdown but managed to flatten the curve
like South Korea and Japan. Some great minds in the department in charge of health seem to be averse
mass testing. Germany goes for mass testing
The President says we are in a war. And good generals are prepared for various war scenarios. For instance General Schwarskoff has all details of a battle plan drawn to the last logistic plan including tissue paper and slippers on soldiers. We could do better than that?
