DOH vows relentless hard work in keeping population safe amid low ranking in COVID-19 suppression

The Department of Health on Wednesday vowed to continue working to improve the country’s COVID-19 response after Lancet medical journal ranked the country’s efforts in suppressing COVID-19 as 66th out of 91 countries.

“We always receive comments, on rankings…ang sa amin, magtatrabaho kami nang tuloy tuloy, sama sama kaming nagtatrabaho. We are doing a whole of society and whole of nation approach,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in an online forum.

“Anuman po ang magiging kumento, magtatrabaho po tayo para labanan itong sakit na ito at alagaan ang buong poulasyon,” she added.

 Vergeire was referring to the Lancet medical journal which said the Philippines’ ranking is partly due to President Rodrigo Duterte’s “medical populism.”

The study defined “medical populism” as “simplifying the pandemic by downplaying its impacts or touting easy solutions or treatments, spectacularizing their responses to crisis, forging divisions between the ‘people’ and dangerous ‘others,’ and making medical knowledge claims to support the above.”

The President has said at least twice amid the COVID-19 pandemic that the public can disinfect using gasoline.

The Health department has already dismissed this as the President making a joke.

Still, the President did not stop there.

By Monday night, the President—in response to Vice President Leni Robredo’s comments that the government was not doing enough in battling COVID-19—described the coronavirus as a germ flying around and asked Robredo if she wants the government to spray pesticide all over the country to kill the virus.

Both of these measures mentioned by the President are not scientifically proven to exterminate COVID-19.

The country has recorded 291,789 COVID-19 cases so far. Of this number, 230,643 recovered while 5,049 died.

The number of active cases is at 56,097.

The Inter-Agency Task Force, the policy making body for the government’s COVID-19 response, is expected to come up with revised quarantine protocols at the end of the month.—AOL, GMA News