Despite WHO figures, Año says Philippines doing okay in fight vs. COVID-19

Interior Secretary Eduardo Año believes the country is still doing okay in its fight against the coronavirus despite the World Health Organization's figures indicating that the Philippines has the fastest growing number of COVID-19 infections in the Western Pacific Region.

In a television interview, Año said the national government is expecting that positive cases will really spike due to the increase of its COVID-19 testing efforts.

"Yes, as we increased our testing capacities, actually we expected that more positive will turn out but if we will look at the positivity rate, we are about five to six percent positivity rate, our target is to go to around three percent and probably one percent..." Año told ANC television.

"Now, i think it's not also fair to compare with Singapore because Singapore is a very small country, small population. If we look at per population of 100,000, they have about 41 per 100,000. We have about seven point something per 100,000... So we are still doing okay even way below global average..." he added.

He also pointed out that most areas in the country are already placed under modified general community quarantine.

"If you look at the figures, most of these new positive cases are coming from particular regions, Region VII, National Capital Region, and now Region VIII. For the rest of the country, we are doing good. In fact, most are in MGCQ, some are in MGCQ with low risk, meaning to say they are near to new normal," Año said.

Año said that if the national government did not implement quarantine measures, the Philippines could record more or less three million infections with 100,000 deaths. He added that the Philippines is doing better compared to other nations.

"We are doing good compared to other countries like the United States, Brazil..." Año said.

Based on the confirmed cases by date of report within the last 30 days, Philippine cases stood out in the WHO’s graph of data.

For its part, the Department of Health has said the Philippines should not be compared with other countries without considering socioeconomic context like population, living conditions, and health system capacity.

So far, the Philippines has 35,455, with 9,686 recoveries and 1,244 deaths. — RSJ/NB, GMA News