MANILA, Philippines – Health Secretary Francisco Duque’s revelations — that the country is already dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic’s second wave — only shows a disconnect between the government and the people amid this health crisis.
Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Zarate made this claim on Wednesday, questioning whether the government was playing a trick on the public as the Department of Health (DOH) and other agencies were preparing for a second wave of coronavirus infections while being in it already.
“Is the administration taking us for a ride all along? They would say that a second wave is coming, but in truth we are already at the second wave. The disconnect of this government in terms of handling the COVID-19 pandemic,” Zarate said, partly in Filipino, in a message to reporters on Wednesday.
“They hid the true situation from the people when it is the masses who are struggling due to the disease,” he added.
Earlier, Duque was questioned at a Senate committee hearing on how the government could determine whether the country was already experiencing a second wave of infections.
The health secretary answered by saying that the Philippines was already inside the dreaded second wave, as the first one happened when three Chinese citizens in the country were found to have the disease last January.
“When we had the three cases of Chinese nationals from Wuhan, that was what we are acknowledging as the first wave,” Duque explained.
But Zarate asked why did Duque did not opt to impose stricter measures earlier if the country was already gripping with COVID-19, then called as the 2019 Novel coronavirus (2019-nCOV), as early as January.
“If there was a first wave by January, why did you not declare a health pandemic or an emergency, based on Section 7 of Republic Act No. 11332? Why did you allow COVID-19 to spread before doing quarantine measures?” Zarate said.
According to health expert Dr. John Wong, who is also part of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF), the first wave occurred in January. The second wave, meanwhile, peaked by the end of March.
After the three Chinese nationals were confirmed to have the latest coronavirus strain, it took some time before the country registered other cases. However, when the fourth case — a person who frequented a mall in San Juan City — was recorded, cases kept on piling up.
As of now, health authorities said that there are 13,221 COVID-19 cases nationwide, with 842 deaths and 2,932 recoveries.
Worldwide, over 4.907 million persons have been infected, of which 323,392 have died while 1.848 million have recovered.
/atm