“To match the standards of World Health Organization’s positivity rate on a daily basis, We should be testing at least 130,000 individuals per day, at least 90,000 in NCR, at the current rate that we are going.”
A year since the world’s longest and strictest lockdown was imposed, health workers here in the Philippines are still dying due to the dreaded virus – the latest is a unionist in a government hospital.
The Center for Women’s Resources highlighted that economically-insecure Filipino women have increased from 16 million in 2019 to an estimated number of 19.54 million in 2020.
“When it comes to public health and public funds, it is right and just for the people to be ‘choosy’ to make sure that government will procure the most number of doses to be able to vaccinate more people using the vaccine that is most cost-efficient and effective.”
This year, the plight of health workers and the dire conditions of the country’s public health system were highlighted amid the raging pandemic.
What Vietnam and Southern Korea have done to combat the spread of COVID-19 are exactly the opposite of what the Philippine government has been doing so far.
“We cannot accept the Court’s reasoning that it is barred from compelling the executive to protect the people’s right to health ‘in a certain way or to a certain degree’ and ‘no matter how dire the emergency’ when it is obvious that the current response is a huge failure and places our people’s health and safety in peril.”
So, how does this contact tracing really happen? In my case, wala (none). It didn’t happen. I hope this is an isolated case but if this is the norm in most cases, gets ko yung sinasabi ng matanda na we just wait for a vaccine. For the meantime, use gasoline to clean your face masks but do not add fuel to the fire.
With the Philippine government set to provide the next wave of aid for pandemic-hit Filipinos, residents of urban poor community Payatas in Quezon City said they received none since March.
“As a health worker, it pains me that my brother has died from this virus. I work hard, look after my patients and even say a prayer for them, because I know the world will turn in my favor one day. But it hasn’t. My brother was neglected.” By JANESS ANN J. ELLAO Bulatlat.com MANILA…
By DEE AYROSO