Raffin

Look Eleazar up and you will see little except that prior to heading the IATF he was in 4 different positions in 27 months. Rapid promotion but how could he be properly assessed?

Bealinehx

Well he retires in November the usual musical chairs scenario

Gazza-d

As senors are currently under house arrest it makes sense. If senors can't travel to and from a designated quarantine facility they would have to exclude them from travelling to the Philippines which for citizens would likely contravene international law.

Bealinehx

What International Law? Individual countries decide what happens in their jurisdiction.

Gazza-d

Can you legally prevent a citizen from travelling from abroad to their own country. Didn't the Philippines find that out the hard way a couple of month back.

Bealinehx

Item on BBC "Philippines COVID surge throws country into disarray" I personally wouldn't use the last word as the country has been in that situation for the last twelve months or more. What it highlights is something most of us have witnessed first hand is the hardship, desperation and general frustration of the ordinary Filipino, whose patience is now wearing thin. This item was aired on BBC News in the UK and started a wave of enquiries from those I know there.

Raffin

Seniors are not under "house arrest". They are allowed to go out "for essential purposes" eg work, shopping. I'm going out as normal. I carry a statement from the IATF on my phone just in case but have never been challenged. Certain LGUs may say you can't enter Malls etc. Tagaytay is one, there the Guards at entrances ask for age sometimes, if so I lie and so far not asked for proof.
Unfortunately the stay at home order for Seniors is combined with that for minors, who have few valid essential purposes for going out. But the IATF have recently allowed them to go out to register for the national ID.

Bealinehx

Gazza-d ,I presume that your partner is a Philippine citizen, if so I understand your last post.

Raffin

Yesterday a total of 6,979 announced, lower by 754. Two labs late in submitting. Positivity at 14.3%. Cases not announced and held over 189. Tests coming 45.3k.

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/05/08/...d-laboratories

To their credit the DOH not spinning the fall in cases as any great success story. They claim to be puzzled as to the reason but I am sure they know why testing is not responding to the high positivity levels, but don't want to say. My guess is LGU resources are being switched to vaccination plus after Ayuda spending they don't have the funds to ramp up testing.

Recoveries 10,2k.
Deaths 170! RDs made up 122 of them.

Active cases now 63,376.
Severe 1014, up 35, Critical up 24 at 761

NCR ICU % fell 2% to 67%.

Regional data:

CAR 393
NCR 2,014
Ilocos 185
Cagayan 761
C Luzon 940
4A 1,262
W Visayas 244
C Visayas 119
Zamboanga Pen 206
Bicol 165

NCR at 28.9% of national cases.
Top 6 regions at 80.5%, up
NCR bubble at 54.6%, up

In the NCR 9 cities had significantly less cases,, 4 more.
Manila stood out with 149 cases, 119 less then the day before.
Caloocan had nearly 100 less.

Nearly all provinces surrounding the NCR reported less cases.
The exception was Laguna with 32 more.
Ifugao reported 139, 100 more than the day before.

Selected cities:

Bacolod 53
Baguio 77, down 21
CDO 41
Cebu 30
Davao 50
Zamboanga 136, up 6

Angeles 48
Tarlac 36

Puerto Princesa 62, down 21


Japan

The Philippines getting some cover from a first world neighbour now reporting over 5,000 daily cases. Its Ppast cases a lot less at about 600k but also slow with vaccines. It has only vaccinated about 2% of the population, similar to the Philippines. Surprising as its population is an aging one.
But fairer to contrast the Philippines with Indonesia:


Indonesia cases falling, albeit slowly lately..

The country has also administered nearly ten times as many vaccine doses.

Raffin

Yes, "more disarray" would be more accurate. Unfortunately The Philippines only gets covered during natural disasters...this is one but there are many other countries similarly affected all at the same time. At present India rightly getting the most attention in Asia.

Yes, the people here are very inventive and have found ways like food pantries to alleviate the situation. Thereby saving the government from much more critical attention with people starving out on the streets. It maybe would have been more effective for them to organise food banks as it could commandeer food out of best before date from the grocers etc. Perhaps they thought about that but didn't want to be seen to be too communist like. But also people here do not protest much. Behave very stoically and so things don't get changed.

One thing the ordinary people can't help much with is health care and I see one potential 2022 presidential candidate is thinking of running on a health agenda. A welcome change from the usual personality driven candidatures.

Major news media are not here consistently. Al Jazeera used to do a lot, now less. The country not a place journalists like to come to these days.

Gazza-d

If you don't test you don't find, India it's been suggested is experiencing four times the cases than are being officially reported due to low testing. I suspect the Philippines has been playing the same game from the very start due to national pride I assume rather than allocating resources.

Raffin

I think they were playing that game a year ago but you would think they would have learnt from what happened in late 2020 when cases were low but level for many weeks, testing dipped before starting the present surge. They also know that they can't be rescued in time by vaccines. My sense is that they are resigned to being one of the last countries to exit the pandemic. Yes, they don't want to know all the cases now, after all the mostly young will get over it without any special treatment! It's too late in the pandemic for the private sector to want to establish new labs, especially in remote areas. But at present official case numbers are only rising in two areas, W Visayas and in the Mindanao regions. The government is resistant to re-allocate resources from infrastructure and defence to testing with an election next year.

Bealinehx

Raffin
Agree entirely. I am now going to pursue 13a rather than rely on Balik Bayan as I cannot see any meaningful relaxation of immigration regulations until 2023.

Gazza-d

Well currently balikbayans are allowed in again. Hopefully this time I'll get back in again before they change their minds again. I've always wondered if there has never been any meaningful testing in the Philippines and the bulk has come from arrivals and departures as since the numbers tested seems to have dropped since the travel cap was reduced to 4500 per day total. And as the numbers entering has been restricted the airlines have stopped comming so the numbers leaving has been choked off which has reduced the testing by many thousands

Raffin

Yesterday 200 or so more cases announced. They included some backlog, 658, from past testing. The latest testing produced a positivity of 13.9%. A majority of cases yesterday came from outside the NCR bubble and lately that area has been at most at 55%, so it will be interesting to see some recent regional positivity numbers. Only 41.8k tests coming along.
Recoveries 9,2k

Deaths 204 with 149 of them RDs.
We await information on the date of all these deaths. Once the DOH published it daily.

Active cases 61,294. Severe at 1.7% so 1042 in that condition, up 28. Critical up 36 to 707.
NCR ICU at 68% capacity, up 1%.

Regional data 100 cases and over

NCR 1,978
4A 1,420
C Luzon 773
Cagayan 704
Zamboanga Pen 422
CAR 308
C Visayas 217
Soccs 202
W Visayas 195
N Mindanao 189
Ilocos 168
CARAGA 138
Davao Reg 109

NCR with a few less cases and its share at 27.6%.
For the top 6 regions all except 4A had less cases.
The top 6 had a lower 78.1% of national cases,
The NCR bubble had a lower 43.6%.
Zamboanga Peninsula is notable with 422 cases, 216 more on the day.
Central Visayas added 98 more.

Few significant changes for NCR cities, 3 up significantly, 2 down.
Notably Las Pinas with 54 more, Manila 56 more.
Makati with 36 less, Taguig 40 less.

For provinces Cavite added about 100 more, Quezon added 133 more to report 191 cases.
Otherwise those provinces surrounding the NCR were either the same or reported less.

Selected cities:

Baguio 72
Bacolod 45
Cebu 49
CDO 68
Cotobato 17
Davao 60
Zamboanga 292, adding 156.

Angeles 65
Tarlac 81..both up

Puerto Princesa 43

Vacciinations:

ABS-CBN report 320.6k fully vaccinated at May 4.
John Hopkins latest: 443.8k
and 2.8M doses administered in total.