Manila has fallen. Is this the end?

[Old55]

Manila has fallen

By:  Joel Ruiz Butuyan -  @inquirerdotnet

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 04:06 AM April 05, 2021

I’m referring not just to the old city of Manila, but to the 16 cities of the entire Metro Manila area. From the vantage point of those who are in the provinces like me, the COVID-19 contagion has overrun the National Capital Region (NCR).

From news reports, so many Metro Manila hospitals can no longer accommodate the rising number of patients infected with the virus. Sick patients from the metropolis are seeking admission in hospitals located as far as Batangas City. There are increasing reports that people are ending up dead while camped out in waiting tents outside Metro Manila hospitals. There’s also the mounting number of city residents with mild symptoms who are suddenly dying in their homes. The contagion in NCR has spread to the neighboring provinces of Rizal, Laguna, Cavite, and Bulacan where many city workers reside.

 

There’s the increasing number of Metro Manila residents who are moving back to the provinces, and along with them, they’re bringing and spreading the virus. Provincial folk are wary of those who are arriving from Metro Manila, and their fears are not without basis. Categorized as “locally stranded individuals” (LSIs), Metro Manila residents are subjected to mandatory testing in the provinces, and many of them are turning out positive for the virus.

Worried that they would be quarantined in provincial facilities with decrepit accommodations, there are Metro Manila residents who try to secretly move back to their hometowns without reporting to municipal authorities. As a result, those who are asymptomatic and

unaware that they have the virus are ending up infecting their provincial relatives and friends. The spread of the virus in the provinces can be traced back to many LSIs who did not undergo COVID-19 testing.

The physical and mental exhaustion already suffered by Metro Manila medical professionals (and all medical practitioners in the entire country, for that matter) is tremendous. I am amazed that they continue reporting for work, despite the constant danger to their lives, their deep resentment against a government that has bungled our nation’s COVID-19 response, and their bitterness against a public that has dropped its guard down.

There are so many Metro Manila medical practitioners who are contracting the virus recently. Just three days ago, 110 out of 180 employees who were tested at the Philippine Orthopedic Center in Quezon City turned out to be positive for the virus. That’s a whopping 61-percent positivity rate.

If the health crisis further worsens in Metro Manila, there’s the unimaginable danger that city health workers will call it quits in substantial numbers, and that will truly plunge the metropolis into mind-boggling chaos.

To be sure, there are provincial cities already experiencing the level of contagion similar to the NCR region. But this is due to travelers to and from Metro Manila who have brought the virus to the provinces.

My brother, Dr. Glenn Butuyan, has described in a video message that has gone viral the extreme sacrifice that health workers make: Every single day that they report for work is a “suicide mission.” They don’t know whether they will ever come back to see their families again every time they leave their houses for work. They are truly our country’s heroes. It’s blood-curdling, therefore, that we have a national government that’s wasting billions of public funds on invented emergencies out of our insurgency and drug problems, when the l war of the century” is being waged by our courageous medical professionals. Money should be poured into supporting our brave health workers who go on “hara-kiri” missions every day. The Duterte administration doesn’t get it. No matter how hard it tries to divert public attention away from the pandemic, no matter how desperate it gets in manufacturing a legacy out of its wars against insurgents and drugs, no matter how many billions of public funds it wastes for electioneering purposes, the people’s attention, President Duterte’s legacy, and the country’s elections will all be dictated by its success or failure in the war that will decide mankind’s survival.

 

https://opinion.inquirer.net/139055/manila-has-fallen

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Edited April 5, 2021 by Old55

[Dave Hounddriver]

Still only 3/4 million cases in the Philippines.  That is far from the worst hit countries.  But I wonder if the Philippines is properly recording their case numbers

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/countries-where-coronavirus-has-spread/

[GeoffH]

1 hour ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

Still only 3/4 million cases in the Philippines.  That is far from the worst hit countries.  But I wonder if the Philippines is properly recording their case numbers

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/countries-where-coronavirus-has-spread/

 

I am aware of family members (generally the poorer ones) who've been talking about 'the flu' that's been going through their varying baranguys.

A few weeks back one of the mothers was telling me of a case of Covid (confirmed) that had happened a few shacks away to an elderly woman who'd died.

Then... fast foward a couple of week and suddenly the husband is too sick to work his tricycle (which never happens, he just works) and then the mother has a cough and also the son.

 

I've heard variations of that repeated a few times.  Now yes it could be a cold or it could be the flu... but it also could be Covid.

 

Without wide spread testing, which isn't happening (people won't go because they're worried they'll get quarantined and can't work) who knows how wide spread it is.

 

But my suspicion is that there are many many more cases than the official numbers say.

Edited April 5, 2021 by GeoffH

[Snowy79]

90 cases from Boracay now.  Not bad for an island of 7.5km and that's without strict testing and zero ICU beds. Somewhere around about 154 cases in Malay, Aklan and only 17 ICU beds in the whole of Malay, Aklan.  I'm also reading reports of 6 cases in Puerto Galera after they opened up to tourists without swab tests but my friend is a nurse in the only hospital ( clinic) in town and she assures me many more are not being reported to protect the LGU.

I think we can safely say the Philippines has lost the war on Covid, all we can hope for is it is as close to flu as we can get with fatalities but there will obviously be the fall out affecting other treatments.

[Shady]

2 hours ago, Old55 said:

From news reports

That's his first mistake, basing conclusion on PH news. 

His second mistake is not including anything important in his clickbait article, for example the exact number of deaths due to covid.

[hk blues]

1 hour ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

Still only 3/4 million cases in the Philippines.  That is far from the worst hit countries.  But I wonder if the Philippines is properly recording their case numbers

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/countries-where-coronavirus-has-spread/

I have the same wondering.  But, that runs contrary to the numerous posts on this form about the tendency to put everything down to Covid due to incentives for doing so.  So, something isn't adding up either way.   

[OnMyWay]

51 minutes ago, hk blues said:

I have the same wondering.  But, that runs contrary to the numerous posts on this form about the tendency to put everything down to Covid due to incentives for doing so.  So, something isn't adding up either way.   

At this point, I think the hidden cases far outweigh the the "covid due to incentives", and "covid due to incentives" is one of the big reasons why.  Nobody wants to get dragged into the nightmare of Philippines Covid response that includes all the things talked about here.  Only really sick people seek out help.

I was just browsing the Worldmeter stats.  In no particular order of importance, using stats from 2 days ago ....

-- China has almost 1.5 billion people and only 90,000 cases.  Sorry, can't believe anything China says.

-- India seems to have the worst current breakout at 90,000 cases a day.

-- Philippines is:

# 13 in total population

#139 in REPORTED cases per million population

#140 in tests per million population

#10 in new cases per day

#17 in new deaths

# 33 in total deaths at 12,423

#120 in deaths per million population at 121.  So .0121 % of the population has died of "Covid", including people like my friend who died of a heart attack, and others like him.

In Asia, there are 49 countries in Worldmeters.  Philippines is #21 in deaths per million pop.  Asia includes most of Middle East.

Compared to "Active cases", Philippines seems to have a very low % of "Serious / Critical".

====================

I hope that Worldmeters will add "Vaccinations completed per million pop".  

[scott h]

5 hours ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

Still only 3/4 million cases in the Philippines.  That is far from the worst hit countries.  But I wonder if the Philippines is properly recording their case numbers

It was just on the news 15 minutes ago that 72 labs did not work on Easter Sunday so the numbers appear to have gone down,,,,but the gov acknowledges that they are false numbers. 

So where is the sense of urgency? If the labs take a day off in the middle of a crisis?

[expatuk2014]

Its no surprise to me that this covid thing is still with us !

Yes the local city government are doing all they are able to with the amount of resources they have.

But and this is a big but ! Where i live its a short tricycle ride to a large grocery store, and from my house to the store i counted 32 people standing and sitting outside their homes chatting with others or drinking coffee etc , non wearing face masks ! And with small children playing in the road non with masks !

 

[hk blues]

48 minutes ago, scott h said:

It was just on the news 15 minutes ago that 72 labs did not work on Easter Sunday so the numbers appear to have gone down,,,,but the gov acknowledges that they are false numbers. 

So where is the sense of urgency? If the labs take a day off in the middle of a crisis?

To be fair, the exact same situation was found in the UK as well - 5/6 day working.  Even in the initial vaccination process it was "office hours" only