Published June 27, 2021, 6:19 PM
PNoy was focused on a singular objective: trace, contact and test all of the fellow passengers of ‘Patient One’ who had tested positive for MERS COV the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome caused by a coronavirus.
He marshaled all of the relevant facts: the nature of the disease and how it was spread; the testing of Filipinos in Saudi Arabia and other areas known to have been affected by MERS COV; how the tracing procedures could be improved in light of this particular experience
The MERS COV incident happened five months after he dealt with three consecutive challenges: the Zamboanga siege in September, the Bohol earthquake in October, and Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) in November all in 2013.