Raffin

Where we are living seems almost no open criticism or even discussion in the national media.and so how would they manage another Pandemic here will depend on whatever changes they have decided on secretly in the DOH and across government. One thing they have done is to pass a law to set up a Philippine CDC. Not particularly encouraging to me.
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Vietnam, with a population near to the Philippines, said yesterday it had just one new case, down from the several per day it had been recently , reporting. A communist run country so one can say they do have a very low level of infection. We will soon see if cases here get down to double digits daily as the Rainy Season is over.

Spent the day yesterday in a part of Manila where there are many HQs of a lot of banks, financial institutions. Many people masked up outside. Went in one large bank HQ where many staff, especially at the lower level, were masked up. Covid precaution notices still up. Numbers in lifts restriction notices. Later to a PLDT office where the staff were all speaking to customers with problems through masks.

How long is this going to be kept up here?

Bealinehx

The Philippines seems to thrive on paranoia. I really do not understand continual mask wearing as it has been demonstrated that the wearing of masks proved to ineffective in preventing the spread off SARS2.

Gazza-d

Perhaps they are wearing masks due to the levels of pollution in Manila, I would expect them to be quite effective against diesel particulates.

Bealinehx

You may be correct in that assumption.

Raffin

DOH Weekly Covid report
Oct 23 - 29

New cases 1,088 (1,146)
​Fall of 5.1% (-8.5%)

Deaths 13
10 after Oct 16

Hosputal data

New serious 10 (22)
Admitted 259 (221)
ICU 10,9% (11.8%)
Non ICU 15.9% (16.9%)

​​

Raffin

DOH Weekly Covid Report
Oct 31 - Nov 6

Not so useful given it was a week's holiday for many people.

New cases 895 (1.088) A fall of 18% (-5%)
No deaths reported.

Hospital Report

New cases 12 (10)
Admitted 276 (259)
ICU 12.3% (10.9%)
Non ICU 17.7% (15.9%)

Some covid news



Dr Wilson adds to Dr Susan Oliver's recent video on DNA and vaccination.



Dr Susan Oliver looks at the Helsinki statement of principles for vaccine trials.
Focusing on the use or not of placebo in trials.




Dr Oliver talks at the end about vaccine safety monitoring in the US. While the self reporting VAERS system has had a lot of attention this government body, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, has the duty of reviewing vaccine safety in retrospect. The latest report, main points shown above, was published in May 2021. They will be looking at covid vaccine safety in the near future.

Super Sally put out a newsletter making this claim on Philippine vaccine related deaths:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/stations



Unclear where she gets the 1 excess death per 238 doses of covid vaccine from. Notice the choice of where she changes her headline from large text to small!

In another newsletter she also reported the latest update from the PSA of 2022 Philippine Cause of Death data:



Deaths in 2022 are now up to nearly 10% on 2019.
Deaths from the 3 top causes, Ischemic Heart Disease (restricted arterial blood flow), Cerebrovascular and Diabetes causes
now showing slightly lower increases over 2019.

From looking at the latest birth and death updates SS has another thing to worry about!



Oh dear!

In a third newsletter SS was very excited that Philippine excess deaths during the Pandemic are to be investigated by the House.committee on Public Order and Safety.
Chaired by Congressman Fernandez.
Graduated as an optometrist, though I cannot see anything about him practising. Then took up acting in the 1990s.





Not really worth looking at the video as most of it is about other matters. But if you watch it is clear that the Chairman has already made his mind up on the main cause of Philippine excess deaths, as he went through a number of country's deaths graphed against covid vaccinations. Pointing out the temporal correlation as very relevant, if not proof. He refers to You tube videos, which must surely include those from Dr John Campbell.

Congr. Fernandez seems to have been a fully paid up member of the Super Majority from Duterte's time as President. So he won't be looking at the argument that the high excess deaths were a lot to do with the late vaccination roll out he presided over.



The vaccination roll out was slower than most other country's in 2021.



Compare the roll out with the rapid rise in Philippine covid cases in 2021.

Latest UK Excess Deaths chart from weekly ONS data:

The last 11 weeks. 1% at w/e 27 October..

Our World data, has UK expected deaths calculated on a different basis:
Latest 5% October 1.
UK Excess Deaths seem finally to have settled down.

UK Covid Inquiry....a useful catch up from the BBC:

https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/c0wdyg72770t

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-67272152

Another health issue post Pandemic has been discovered.

Raffin

DOH Weekly Covid report
Nov 7 to 15

New cases 1,132 (895)
The Manila Bulletin, the only media outlet to so far report on this, say the DOH call this a "12% rise" on last week. When in fact it is a 27% rise. Last week the MB reported 895 cases. Even though the education level is low here it is difficult to believe the MB journalists cannot do a percentage change calculation correctly.
We know most of the MSM is timid. But why would the DOH want to misreport?
Possibly because they have recently submitted a report to the Palace on future covid protocols? Presumably it is proposing relaxing them and so a 27% rise would spoil the messaging?
So a rise of 27% (-18%).
As last week was a holiday for many and we have entered the cool season, when cases are expected to rise.
No deaths from November so far.

Hospital Report

New serious cases 12 (12)
Admitted 246 (276)
ICU beds 11.5% (12.3%)
Non ICU 18.3% (17.7%)

House enquiry into excess deaths update

SS reports in one of her shorter newsletters that she has been invited to submit evidence to the enquiry (see my post here on November 8 last).
She is a rabid anti vaxxer. Bur is a useful source for Philippine covid and vital statistics.
Recently she claimed there could have been at least 763,000 "jab implicated premature deaths" here!
The latest Phamacovigilance Report at April 30 logged 2,816 fatal outcomes after vaccination, with only 323 cases causually linked to vaccination. Though only 1,075 had been investigated. Of these just 8 were confirmed as due to vaccination.
Obviously there should be more. Some of you reading this here will recall reports 2 years ago of suspicious "death spikes" from Cebu and Bulacan. But a far cry from hundreds of thousands.
We will see how the enquiry goes and whether it is reported in the media. With the Chairman seemingly already minded that vaccination was the main cause and more "evidence" of a similar nature to come the committee's report seems heading for a bombshell finding. Reflecting badly on the previous administration. Many members of which are serving in the current one.
My guess is that the committee's final report won't be released or will be greatly watered down. There may not be a full House debate and it won't get to the Senate. Due to it being politically unacceptable.
​​​​​​

Raffin

DOH Weekly Covid Report
November 14-20

New cases 1,210 (1,132) A rise of 7% (+27%)
Deaths 9 with 4 of them in November.

Hospital Report

New admissions 14 (12)
Admitted 284 (246)
ICU 10.1% (11.5%)
Non ICU 16.1% (18.3%)

Some You tube covid items



...even if you have had any of a number of combinations of vaccination and infection
vaccination has the advantage..
Have people in the selected high risk groups been put off from taking the latest UK bosters
and therefore putting themselves at more risk
Dr Susan Oliver responding to the latest of many Campbell videos pushing the idea that
covid infection is superior to vaccination in conferring immunity.

She shows supporting data from the 2022 UK Autumn booster campaign.


He cited an Israeli study.
Two months ago.



Dr Susan Oliver takes on many anti vaxxers on this subject.



Something that has happened before...



US collegiate athletic data actually showing a steady decline in Sudden Cardiac Deaths (Red line: SCD)
Anti vaxxers on the look out for something to blame on the vaccines. Which they ignored before.



Ever anxious to denigrate covid vaccines Dr Campbell presents a non Peer Reviewed paper on what the authors name as Post Vaccination Syndrome (PVS). No problem, he says, it's from Yale and will certainly be published. But what about revisions?
He spends the first few minutes talking generally about the self reported symptoms. Only then describing how the data was collected. Essentially from Social Media. As many watchers just look at the first few minutes this approach could easily give them the idea that these issues are common.

Recent UK covid news

Recent ONS UK Excess mortality:

w/c 3 Nov +3.4%
w/c 27 Oct +1.0%
w/c 20 Oct -1.9%
w/c 13 Oct 0

Our World in Data:

October 1 - 22: All weeks 5 - 6%

The UK's Chief Scientist not consulted on "Eat out to help out" scheme:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-67479548

The Philippines:

The Chairman of the House's Public Safety Committee filing a Bill on WHO proposals for future Pandemics. Looks like he has been influenced by the same groups also looking to implicate the vaccines as a main cause of excess deaths at his committee's hearings.




E and SE Asian Covid

The Philippines still publishing at 150 - 200 cases a day..
Thailand latest weekly 390 cases.
Indonesia 188, Hong Kong 177 weekly.




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Raffin

DOH Weekly Covid Report
Nov 21 - 27

New Cases 1,218 (1,210)
An increase of 0.7% (+7%)

Hospital Data

New admissions 11 (14)
Admitted 216 (284)
ICU 11.4% (10.1%)
Non ICU 17.7% (16.1%)

The attention of the DOH recently has shifted away from covid towards ILIs (Influenza like Illnesses).
They say their sampling here has so far not uncovered any new pathogens. They are waiting for reports from China on that.
ILIs have been high this year here, though lately the rate of increase has fallen. The festive season is expected to increase cases again.
For comparison the Philippines is reporting far more covid cases than its neighbours to Worldometers.
​​Latest weekly totals
Thailand 480
Indonesia 143
Hong Kong 139
Myanmar 2

They are the only other E Asian countries still reporting.

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Raffin

DOH Covid Weekly Report
Nov 28 - Dec 4

New cases 1,340 (1,218)
A rise of 10% (+1%)

No deaths reported (11)

Hospital Report

New cases 11 (11)
Admitted 253 (216)
ICU use 11.6% (11.4%)
Non ICU 17.5% (17.7%)

The expected increase as we enter the cool season.
The number of new cases include that of the President...or should, anyway.

In SE Asia Thailand reported an increase of 12% over last week with 536 cases.

Some covid and pneumonia news:

Dr Susan Oliver produced an interesting analysis of recent claims, reported by Dr John Campbell, proposing a new syndrome, PVS....Post Vaccination Syndrome. Based on a survey with data collected through social media.
See my post November 21.



This meta analysis estimated adverse events in the placebo groups being compared with the vaccinated groups at 30%.
No link in her video notes. This is the article:



She then goes on to make a number of telling points on the survey based PVS article:

Adverse effects do not vary in rate of occurrence with the brand of vaccine. Weakening the case against mRNA vaccines being the main cause. One made by many anti vaxxers.

Forty four percent of reported adverse effects in the survey occurred after the first dose. But only 24% of those did not get a second dose.
Then seventy seven per cent reported an adverse effect after either the first or second dose. But by the time second doses were out the percentage vaccinated in the US was 78. Pointing to the idea that adverse events were occurring somewhat randomly. Sixty per cent did not get a booster. Which Dr Oliver says supports the idea that people had been wrongly convinced by then that the vaccines caused the adverse event. Unless people had got "vaccine fatigue" by then! Something well known with other vaccines she says and quotes from a paper on the HPV vaccine and its reported adverse effects.

Ah...but anti vaxxers will say, reporting systems are not picking up these post vaccine adverse effects .
But they are:



From the Pfizer page in the appendix to the UK Yellow Card latest report. While Dr Campbell headlined "Anxiety and Depression" in his video he also made a lot of "Exercise Intolerance".
But you can see 48 reported a decrease in exercise and 2 an increase...post vaccination. Twenty seven an energy increase! Yes, there is a lot of under reporting but there were by then about 55M vaccinations!

Dr Campbell looked at the reports from China concerning pneumonia in children




Reuters have produced an updated report on the little that is known.
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/...ge-2023-12-01/

The Philippines has very limited testing facilities for the bacteria causing this mostly mild pneumonia AKA "Walking Pneumonia. Of course there is a suspicion it can easily get here from China.
Correct name mycoplasma pneumoniae.



He never misses an opportunity to link disease with vitamin deficiency and finds a study
from China on an association with low Vit A. Vit A deficiency is mostly seen in poorer
countries and is generally just one element in the poor diet and conditions seen for children
in those.

House Covid Enquiry

I have reported here about that last November 9 and 15.

On November 21 Dr Edsel Salvana, Leader of the "Technical Advisory Group" to the now defunct IATF.
Holds posts at UP Manila and adjunct professor University of Pittsburgh.A well known physician here.
Spoke to the House of Representatives Committee on Public Safety on behalf of the DOH.
These are the main points from his explanation of Philippines 2021 excess deaths, which were at least 43%, as reported by SS in her latest Newsletter sent on December 1.

https://supersally.substack.com/





Health service disruption blamed.

He didn't seem to know about the evidence that covid through its sequelae is seen to have caused many deaths.
And of course he didn't want to admit that vaccination has certainly caused more than 9 deaths here. Including the possible hundreds from bad batches.

On the timing of lockdown Manila had its first on March 16. See later for a video from the UK covid inquiry where the former health secretary argued that instead of March 23 the lockdown there should have started on March 2!

As SS notes he didn't give any scientifically backed evidence. Despite the title of his talk.
Both he and anti vaxxers for different reasons do not want to acknowledge the lateness of Philippine covid vaccination. The great majority of the general public only started to be vaccinated in the 3rd quarter of 2021. See my previous posts last month on that.
This contributed to excess deaths in the whole of 2021 as second doses had to be given. Also contributing to some excess deaths in early 2022. While anti vaxxers claim correctly for 2020 as a whole there were no excess deaths they ignore some excess deaths in mid 202 pre vaccination. Evidence of covid and its sequelae.

An excess death chart from Our World I have posted before, but it bears repeating:


Note the rapid fall after second doses late 2021.

Update on UK Excess Deaths


There was a rise from the start of October from zero with the latest data from November 17 falling to 2.8%.
Dr John Campbell made something of the rise in a recent video....but the data has always shown significant
weekly volatility.



The Our World chart for this year shows this better. Latest data end of October at 6%.


UK Covid Inquiry

The former Health Secretary Matt Hancock appeared:


https://apnews.com/article/uk-covid-...0d557888138d6d

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...oss-of-dignity

Former PM during covid, Boris Johnson, will appear later this week. Should be interesting.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...-covid-inquiry





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Bealinehx

I must say that the Blame Game in the UK is pitiful at best.
It's time to learn from the Covid experience put best practices in place and move on.
Raffin, I have to congratulate you for all the effort you have put into informing us with pertinent information.
By the way how was the earthquake this afternoon?

Raffin

I think Baroness Hallet will see through all that and produce a good report. A 74 year old judge and Wiki says once voted the 8th most powerful woman in the UK by the BBC's Woman's Hour! Problem is that may be later in 2026!
But at least the UK is having an inquiry.

Glad you like my digest of covid news. Even though cases look to be way down we should continue to be wary as it is a disease more serious than the flu and many countries have reduced/stopped testing and even reporting it. Also, soon there should be more high quality large scale academic studies coming out on the Pandemic to complement what comes out of inquiries. Like the one in the UK. And we will see how vaccination goes generally after the misinformation from anti vaxxers and the sometimes heavy handed approaches by health authorities. Then there's the WHOs "Power Grab". The results of some legal cases too.

Yes, we felt it here in Upper Cavite. But it was a lot less powerful than those afflicting Mindanao recently. They had deaths and tsunami warnings. Luckily in both cases well away from main population areas. You wonder how many buildings in the NCR would cope if the faults near Manila become active?

Raffin

DOH Covid weekly report
Dec 5-11

Cases 1,821 (1,340)
A rise of 36% (10%)

Latest OCTA positivity report was
12.3% nationally a week sgo, 10.2% in the NCR at December 3.

Deaths 13 (0) 6 in the last 2 weeks.

Further increases are expected.
Look out for new mask wearing requirements.

Need to make an even greater allowance now than previously for unrecorded and unreported cases ie this is a bigger wavelet than it seems.

With the exception of Thailand The Philippines is showing alone in the E. Asian section of Worldometer's table.
Thailand's weekly total was 536 at December 4. A 12% increase on the previous week

Hospital Report

New cases 13 (11)
Admitted 253 (228)
ICU 13.6% (11.6%)
Non ICU 16.5% (17.5%)

.

Bealinehx

Mask wearing has scientifically proved to be no defence against Covid.
This paranoia which really is to control a subservient population is nonsense> Whatever happened to expose which in turn promotes natural immunity.
Just writing with no axe to grind.

Raffin

Yes, it doesn't do much. Maybe would help most if someone sneezed directly at you.Reducing the viral load. Otherwise the basic type will easily let the virus in.
Saw an article saying that mask wearing has recently been reimposed at the PGH in Manila. But two private hospitals in our area never took the requirement away.
What is really strange are the people you see in well ventilated, uncrowded areas inside and even outside still masked up.