Raffin

Two issues with opening up the economy showing the opposing forces involved:

1. Social distancing in public transport:

The Dept of Transport want to ease the Manila commuter problem caused by the 1 meter rule and most traditional Jeeps not coming back. At first by reducing the distance to 0.75m. This has been opposed by a group of experts from UP. And by the Interior Secretary, Ano. But supported by another group of experts:

https://mb.com.ph/2020/09/15/medical...alize-economy/

I much prefer their approach. Masks plus shields with air flow should be Ok for distances even less than 0.75m, but the mindset to aim for 100% safety continues. Other Asian countries who have done much better than here allow side to side sitting.

So at first 0.75m was going to be the new rule. Now it's back to 1m while the decision is up to the President.

2. Visits to Tagaytay

A few days ago the authorities in Tagaytay announced you could now visit there without a travel pass. Vital as the city has had a disastrous year with the Taal volcano eruption and the pandemic. Last weekend many people from Manila did day trips there.Then Lt General Eleazar Covid shield commander, said no...only if you're from Cavite. From Manila you can't without a travel permit...issued with difficulty only for certain reasons. Now the Cavite governor has reversed that:

https://mb.com.ph/2020/09/17/travel-...s-gov-remulla/

Let's see if that is the end of the matter.

Many small vendors must be suffering greatly there. Tagaytay has very few cases and you would think the type of people visiting there won't be much of a risk.

Raffin

Another 3,375 new cases nationwide yesterday with the NCR unusually less than 30%. With only 77% cases recent.

Deaths at 54 nationally with 33 of those in July and August. NCR at 25 with 12 in July and August.

DOH examination of more past recoveries shows 11 were deaths and 56 active cases!

There could be more cases if testing was higher. Recently around 31K/day.

The Philippines belongs to a group of countries , including Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany and Greece in Europe. In Asia, Indonesia, Myanmar and Malaysia. Where the virus is recorded as being at a low level per head but where cases are increasing. Showing the second highest relative increase to Sweden...but their curve has fallen recently whereas ours is still increasing.

Raffin

Yesterday was another day with more than 3k new cases in the country. Although a large number of Labs, 20 out of 128, not reporting. But until we know their size we can't tell how important that missing 20 would be.

Recent cases were 81% nationally. The NCR again providing a low 31%, (82% recent) other regions making up the rest..Bulacan, Cavite, Negros Occ and Cebu. Again a sizeable fraction could not be tagged to a region( 11%.) it looks like new cases are on the decline in the NCR.

Deaths 47 nationally with 23 of those from the NCR and 11 Calabarzon. Backlogs skewing the picture again as in the NCR 16 of the deaths occurred in July and August.
One death is not now a death and 24 recoveries have been removed from the list The DOH don't say what catergories they went into!

The day before yesterday there were about 2,400 patients severe/critical....yesterday it was 2,440. Every day recently an addition of 40 or 50.
For some reason testing recently has spiked...from a low 30k or so individuals a day to 50k.
Daily positivity down to just below 10% both nationally and in the NCR labs.





The Tagaytay visit disagreement I mentioned two days ago has been resolved. The task force Lt General has explained visitors from Manila are not allowed unless they apply for a travel pass from the police and get a health certificate. Trumping the Tagaytay City mayor, the wealthy owners of hotels and restaurants there and the Cavite mayor. All because one area is in a GCQ and another MGCQ. Actually there's not much difference between the two types of Quarantine. Metro Manila is such a large area with a very large population so it seems to me to be not sensible to apply one national quarantine to it. Just yesterday in the UK a large area of NE England got a new lockdown...but the population and area involved is a lot less. Figures are available for the various cities of Metro Manila eg Quezon City and Manila both have high case counts, but other cities many less. There are also many localized lockdowns going on too.

It would be more complicated but there could be different rules for NCR cities and lockdown areas for activities like travel?

https://www.philstar.com/nation/2020...nly-mgcq-areas

Raffin

More lack of common sense and a misunderstanding of the rules

https://coconuts.co/manila/news/over...out-face-mask/

Paranaque says you should wear a mask in public places.
Malacanang says in GCQ outside your residence.

I would have thought a front yard is not public and is part of your residence.

Bealinehx

As an aside the purchase of Dolomite from Cebu for the very time limited beautification of Manila Bay is proving to be very expensive. Surely the priority should have been to reallocate the funds to the underresourced COVID programme.

Raffin

Nearly 4k cases yesterday nationally although there was a 17% backlog and 10 labs didn't report. In the NCR 1,440, just 36% of the total. Consistently lately well below the 50% mark it used to be at. Calabarzon at 780 contributing 20% So, the NCR not such an epicentre lately, but adding in adjacent Calabarzon could be seen to make a new national epicentre.

Deaths at 100 nationally, with 52 in the NCR and 14 Calabarzon. :Large backlog....27 of the NCR deaths occurred April to August.

Latest testing at around 40k a day. Positivity just under 10% in Manila and nationwide.

Making allowances for backlogs continued moderate increases in both cases and deaths to be seen.
The pandemic here now more equally spread in Central Luzon and the Visayas.

Internationally the Philippines steadily gaining on Italy in the widely publicized total cases table. Likely to overtake the past world epiicenter next week.

Raffin

Agree, especially as people can't safely swim in the polluted water.

But cost P400m, a lot less than the President's yearly confidential intelligence funds at P4.5bn. Coronavirus vaccines for frontliner;s next year in the DOH budget at P2.5bn.

Raffin

Again, nationally over 3k new cases with 84% recent and only 7 labs not reporting. NCR again with well under half the cases (82% recent).

Sunday is the DOH's Mass Recovery Day with 20k recoveries announced yesterday.

There were 55 deaths nationally with 29 from the NCR. Of those NCR deaths over half were from July and August!

After adjusting for recoveries and deaths Active cases are up yesterday on the Sunday before by over 2,500. Showing an increased pressure on the health system.

Looking at weekly changes:

The average weekly cases went up by over 300.
The seven day average deaths rose from 72 to 91 (and the previous week's total included a large number (126) late reported).
There was a significant rise,,5 to 7.1% in fatalities in the 20-39 age group.
The R number rose from 1.0 to 1.15.

Also...latest positivity rates increasing. The latest show 9.5% nationally, 10.3% NCR.

Allowing for backlogs as usual we see a continued steady increase in both cases and deaths lately mainly in the NCR, Calabarzon and Central Luzon, where most of the country's economic activity takes place. Test data shows we need to test more than the 30 to 40k a day. Only on the odd day can 50k be seen even though there are now 128 labs. With our positivity rate we need to get up tp 50k a day much more often.

Good that cemeteries will be closed at Undas, but there will be some level of celebration, followed by the increased shopping and Xmas. So it seems likely the recently established trend will continue into the New Year,

Internationally, both the Philippines and Indonesia showing in the top 10 new deaths table. These two countries are also following a similar trend for cases. They announced nearly 4k more cases yesterday.

Raffin

Over 3k new cases again although 24% were from July and August and just 7 labs not reporting. Which makes it look better....except Mondays after a weekend can be low.
NCR contributing only 35% ,(23% were from July and August) continuing a recent trend.

Just 15 deaths, 9 from the NCR. Low. But again it was a weekend. Also there are now over 1,700 patients reported in a critical condition. A significant recent increase.

Latest daily testing total low at under 27k. Weekend effect?

UP report their latest estimate for the R number for September 17 at 1.15, so we can expect the rise in cases to continue. Their charts are interactive:

https://endcov.ph/epidemic_curves

Interestingly using their provincial charts you can see they report the latest mean R number for the NCR at 0.99, which is borderline but encouraging for the epicenter. But higher R estimates in the areas around the NCR leading to increased new cases there as they re-open economically.

Raffin

Only 1,635 new cases reported yesterday, less than half of the number the day before. With just 9 labs reporting a sudden drop like that is probably due to a drop in the amount of testing....the number of individuals tested lately has been falling to the 20k region. Another 10k tests with 10% positivity would add another 1,000 cases. All very strange as many more labs have been added over the last few weeks and the high positivity rate suggests more testing needs to be done. Reaching 40k and over has been achieved on a few days this month.

Manila contributed 583 or 36% of the total, still at around a third rather than as before a half of all daily cases.

Deaths sadly regained their previous levels with 50 nationwide. Twelve of those were a backlog back from August.
Still well over 1,700 critical patients.

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news...-factor/story/

The Philippines and its leader getting a low grade for its pandemic handling in this article from The Lancet.

Based on August data it says the Philippines has a moderate level of transmission. While we are below August levels now that description still seems to be a valid one.

Medical populism? Would agree there's been a certain amount of that here, but not at the level of Trump and Bolsonaro. In addition to touting unproven treatments they have actually tried to undermine efforts from their own governments, A gradual economic re-opening and no push to resume face to face classes are plusses here

Probably the worse thing here lately is the present over reliance on a hoped for vaccine in 2021 as against improving other measures now,

Gazza-d

I do wonder how much real testing has been going on. The only testing I have personally come across is OFWs and others who need the test to travel and OFW coming back into the country from abroad, my sister in law had two tests, one at the airport and a second when she arrived in the province. With time the numbers will naturally drop as everyone gets into their place.

Raffin

Like you never seen any testing activity and OFWs, travellers international and domestic added to people who get voluntarily tested after showing symptoms or not I agree don't seem to add up to the present level averaging above 30k plus tests a day.

Back in May the Health Secretary said that despite promises to do so no mass testing had been done up to then:

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/127885...since-outbreak

At that time the average level per day was only about 10k. Since then hundreds of communities, factories, institutions have been identified as hotspots and targeted for testing by local health teams. So I assume that gets the numbers to a much higher level. In Paranaque we have a few barangays which were/still are hotspots and have produced the bulk of the 7k cases here. So they must have carried out over 100k tests in total here, but unless you live in those barangays you wouldn't see anything.

Raffin

The DOH yesterday reported and additional 2,833 nationwide cases (80% recent). NCR 1,222...43% of the national total. Seven labs, all in Manila, didn't report.
Over the last two weeks:
NCR 42%
Calabarzon 20%
W Visayas 14% of cases.

Deaths were 44 in total, but 23 of them late reported from August back!
NCR deaths 23.
Then we are told that 21 previous recoveries were really 16 deaths and 5 Active cases!
There are 2,500 patients severe or critical condition.
Many more critical than severe. Which I find a bit strange. So many more deaths expected.

Yesterday's daily bulletin was much briefer than usual. So couldn't see if testing was still at a low level to maybe explain the recent sudden drop in cases.
A local doctor here maintained a daily informative and detailed blog here on Covid from March up to two days ago. Mysteriously stopped after his last blog was very critical of DOH statistics. He is a doctor at a number of prestigious hospitals in Manila so you wonder if he has been pressured to stop?

Bealinehx

Are you surprised? There seems to be a policy of repressing accurate information as may be construed as criticism.

Raffin

A bit as he had been calling them out for months over their data. .He could simply be sick but looks very likely that his latest big criticism, about using an out of date R number was finally too much for them. He wrote (paraphrased) that it is no wonder bad decisions are being made at the top from the data. Annoying both the DOH and top government leaders.