(JANSEN ROMERO / FILE PHOTO / MANILA BULLETIN)
As cases of coronavirus continued to increase, Andanar said the government was also building more temporary health facilities to accommodate more patients.
The Palace official came to the defense of the government’s efforts to address the pandemic following a deluge of criticism on the alleged mishandling of pandemic response. The country has reported a spike in coronavirus infections since last month, prompting authorities to put Metro Manila and four nearby provinces under strict lockdown from March 29 to April 11.
“With the continued challenge of the rise in COVID-19 cases, the Duterte administration is ceaseless in intensifying targeted testing and vaccine inoculation, where we are one of the leading countries in the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian) region,” Andanar said in a statement Thursday, April 8.
Anna Mae Yu Lamentillo
In 2017 I attended the Emerging Leaders Program at the Harvard Kennedy School which was chaired by Dr. Elaine Kamarck and Dr. Christopher Robichaud. In our class on ethics we discussed about the responsibilities of public action via a simulation exercise of an unfolding pandemic.
The question is fairly simple what decision would you make to save your country from a crisis which you had no prior experience to draw from. We knew from the onset the state of the country, the infection rate, the public moral and the likelihood of a country collapse. Every team which represented a particular sector knew how to “win” the game. Decisions were time bound and with limited information.
PASIG CITY, Apr. 7 In response to the continued surge in COVID-19 cases in the National Capital Region (NCR), the government is recalibrating its immunization program wherein it will focus limited vaccine supplies in areas with high infection rates such as the NCR and nearby provinces.
In an online press briefing on Tuesday, April 6, Secretary Carlito Galvez, Jr, Chief Implementer of the National Task Force (NTF) against COVID-19 and Vaccine Czar said that building herd immunity in high-risk areas such as Metro Manila could address the spike in local transmissions.
According to Galvez, this approach was proposed by medical experts during recent consultations spearheaded by the Task Force.