The Department of Health (DOH) yesterday insisted that the Philippines has a relatively low number of COVID-19 cases despite a report from a United States-based organization which showed that the country is far from flattening the curve.
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a virtual presser that lockdown measures, as well as mass testing, kept the number of coronavirus cases low in the country.
“We can say that the lockdown, as well as testing and isolating patients, helped in maintaining the low number of positive cases in our country,” Vergeire said in English and Filipino.
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“If we compare our numbers with other [nations], we can see that while we have new cases every day, it’s not as high as the increase of COVID-19 cases in other countries. Because of the low number of COVID-19 cases, our hospitals and healthcare workers can provide ample care to confirmed cases who are recovering from COVID-19,” she said.
Vergeire added that the Philippines has a 6.6% case fatality rate, which is far higher than neighboring Thailand which has 1.8%, and Malaysia, which has 1.58%. But the DOH official’s statement remains positive despite the stark difference.
“We see a significant lowering of cases and number of deaths. Because we are improving our national testing capacity, we can expect another increase in confirmed cases. We just want to tell you that you should not be alarmed. The increase in confirmed COVID-19 cases is an indication that we are improving our response measure and we are becoming more aggressive in detecting [the virus] and isolating [patients],” she said.
Despite the DOH’s rosy take on the situation, an organization called the New England Complex Systems Institute showed that the Philippines is far from flattening the curve. Earlier this week, graphs from its website made the rounds on social media, which showed the Philippines as a country that “need[s] action.”
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Below is the graph reflecting the trajectory of coronavirus cases in the Philippines, before it hit 10,000 cases.
Here are the graphs reflecting the flattening of the curve in Thailand (which the organization said was “winning” the pandemic) and Malaysia (included in the category “nearly there”).
Do you agree with the DOH that the Philippines is doing better than other countries? Tell us by leaving a comment below or tweeting to @CoconutsManila.
