Commentary: Fresh COVID-19 restrictions bring Philippines back to square one
MANILA: It'due south hard to tell whether the Philippine government intentionally sought to mark exactly one year since the 2022 Metro Manila COVID-xix lockdown by tightening quarantine restrictions once once more, showtime on Mar 15, and then further on Mar 22.
New COVID-19 cases have been piling up at an alarming rate recently, with the capital letter equally the epicentre, abode to roughly a 10th of the national population.
City mayors, with the backing of the assistants, resolved to impose stricter checkpoints, a 10pm curfew, and a limit to general public mobility and economic operations.
What little difference a year makes as an end to one of the longest lockdown periods in the world becomes that much more unimaginable.
READ: Philippines reports record rising of COVID-19 cases as curbs tightened
READ: Commentary: The Philippines hopes lockdown buys time after one-half-hearted attempts at tackling COVID-19
The latest move has been prompted by the precipitous increase in daily average cases (more than 4,600), the second-highest in Southeast Asia. The numbers are comparable to the height of transmission concluding year and show a 113 per cent hike from the end of February to the present.
On Mar 18, the Philippines recorded its highest-ever number of confirmed infections in a day, at vii,103, breaching the 70,000-marker of active cases, the highest since August last year.
Ii days later, the tape was cleaved again, as cases in a single day reached vii,999. More 12,000 deaths have been reported.
Whereas Indonesia, the country with the about COVID-19 cases in the region, has steadily curbed infections, the Philippines is on the uptick.
AN 'Excellent' RESPONSE
Earlier this calendar month, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque exclaimed the "excellent" response of the Philippine regime to the public wellness crunch, compared to developed nations with more modern medical facilities. He too likened the shared experience of the past year to a "vacation".
Meanwhile, President Rodrigo Duterte attempted to downplay the return of stricter quarantine impositions, saying it is only a "small matter".
The reality of having spent a year supposedly controlling the disease nonetheless having to resort to the same hastily imposed restrictions speaks volumes. How tin the response exist "first-class" if the capital is seemingly going back to foursquare one?
Testing for COVID-19 remains an inaccessible privilege for the majority of Filipinos. The vast majority of dedicated vaccination facilities remain run past private enterprises.
Duterte himself publicly stated only in Nov that he had just realised that affordable and accessible testing was important. Civil society groups take been calling for costless mass testing since the beginning.
READ: Commentary: The Philippines is still struggling to get a handle on COVID-19
Despite the president'south epiphany and the commonage groans of a nation, public services only offer COVID-19 tests for those with symptoms. In individual establishments, the cheapest reliable tests are priced at about United states$52, equivalent to a fifth of a minimum wage earner's bacon in the capital letter.
Public officials have also only just begun developing a national organisation for contact tracing this month. Throughout the by yr, local governments accept been left to their ain devices and resource to address this challenge, resulting in various discrepancies in methods and outcomes.
Vaccine rollout remains snail-paced. Near three weeks later acquiring vaccines, 90 per cent of them accept been distributed, according to the Section of Health (DOH), simply less than one-half of the unabridged medical workforce has been inoculated.
The DOH assures that the numbers will soar once more of the donated supplies arrive, just there is lilliputian more than than a scramble for supplies, rather than a definitive program.
READ: Commentary: Is Southeast Asia on rail for post-pandemic recovery?
FUNDAMENTALS OF Health Crisis STILL SORELY UNADDRESSED
It's no wonder that the capital and perchance the country are facing another lockdown, eerily marking the constraints put in identify last year. Chronic mismanagement has left the fundamentals of the public health crisis sorely unaddressed.
Later on a yr, you might recall a lockdown would be a concluding resort, an human action of agony – not something done because nothing else had been worked out.
Worse, the return of restrictions looks to bear the same pitfalls information technology did the first fourth dimension around. Throughout last year, more than 100,000 individuals were arrested for low-level quarantine violations. Police averaged around a 1000 arrests per day nationwide.
Simply ii days after curfew was reinstated, nonetheless, the law had arrested 6,498 people in Metro Manila alone.
The Duterte administration is doing the same thing as last time, while leaving out what it should be doing, merely somehow it expects a different result.
READ: Commentary: Restrictions on movements in some Southeast Asian countries to fight COVID-nineteen accept been patchy, fifty-fifty scary
The timing is too suspect. Tensions are loftier, as is the demand for political accountability – reintroducing quarantine policies immobilises the opposition, elevates police power in a higher place all and presents the appearance that something is being done.
It seems Duterte is unfazed by the international pressures of seeing neighboring countries far surpass his regime's efforts in addressing the pandemic. The virus cannot be put in handcuffs, and it will outsmart indolent officials at every turn.
Every bit long as these practices remain the standard, the Philippines will have to grapple with its own regime'south failures before it tin can truly make strides for public health.
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Michael Beltran is a freelance journalist in the Philippines. This commentary first appeared on Lowy Plant'southward blog, The Interpreter
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/commentary-fresh-covid-19-restrictions-bring-philippines-back-square-one-290386
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