Pandemic equivalent to 1-year of super typhoon Yolanda

One doctor compared the COVID pandemic to one year of experiencing super typhoon Yolanda.

According to Aileen Espina, member of the Healthcare Professionals Alliance Against COVID-19 and national director of the Philippine Academy of Family Physicians, the healthcare system is not ready to ease the quarantine level in the National Capital Region (NCR) Plus.

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She said the action against COVID-19 should be like in addressing the super typhoon.

“It’s not a question of kakayanin, kahit naman ‘yung nakaraang 2 linggo, we were nearing collapse of our healthcare system. Para na itong naging Yolanda sa tindi. This is beyond the capacity of healthcare system to respond to the current situation,” said Espina.

“At least ‘yung Yolanda noon sa’min sa Tacloban after 5 hours tapos na siya, ito 1 taon na paulit-ulit na…bababa ‘yung kaso, magre-relax tayo hindi natin ina­ayos ‘yung root cause ng pagdami ng kaso.”

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“The country’s contact tracing applications are like an “archipelago,” she added.

Also read: PH vaccine drive unaffected by AstraZeneca suspension: FDA

Pandemic equivalent to 1-year of super typhoon Yolanda

The Healthcare Professionals Alliance Against  (HPAAC) COVID-19 calls on the government to have long-term solutions such as coordinated digital contact tracing.

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HPAAC also released a statement saying that the government “still [having] no clear plans and efforts to fix the root causes” of the problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As the IATF deliberates on the fate of the Filipino people amidst this pandemic, HPAAC is alarmed that critical bottlenecks to long-term solutions have not been addressed, and necessary changes to systems and processes have yet to be implemented,” it said in a statement on April 11.

HPAAC said the two-week implementation of enhanced  () is “but a short-term intervention, and yet it seems to have been wasted again.”

PGH spokesperson Jonas del Rosario also said that the capacity of the country’s healthcare system will no longer be able to handle the worsening COVID-19 case if the quarantine level is relaxed.

However, NCR Plus was downgraded to modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) from the ECQ yesterday.