FILE PHOTO Health Sec. Francisco Duque III appears via teleconferencing Tuesday, August 18, before the Senate. (Screen grab/Senate PRIB)
MANILA, Philippines — Health Secretary Francisco Duque III noted that the country was able to reverse the increasing trend of COVID-19 cases starting September last year until early February, amid claims that the situation in the country did not change much after the timeout requested by health workers in August.
“As in the first peak in August of 2020 last year, we were successful in reversing the trend, beginning September, October, November. In fact [in] November, December, January, and up to about two weeks of February, we were able to achieve a plateauing of cases until the last week of February and up to March when we started seeing a spike in the number of cases,” Duque told ABS-CBN News Channel.
“But the fact that we were able to do what we did, and brought down the number of cases is a testament to our ability to reverse the peak and the effectiveness by which the local government units have implemented the strategic pillars of our pandemic response,” he added.
Duque was responding to the comment of doctors from the Healthcare Professionals Alliance against COVID-19 (HPAAC) who said that “things didn’t really change much since we called for a timeout in August and we have to be humble enough to admit that we have failed in so many aspects in terms of our preventive measures in both personal and institutional levels.”
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Duque, however, said he respects the opinion of the medical force and added that the Department of Health even followed many of their recommendations in the pandemic response.
He noted that some restrictions were loosened up but “not for bad reasons.”
“You see the economic cluster has been begging practically to really open up more parts of the economy dahil sumasadsad talaga ang ekonomiya, ang taas ng unemployment rate, so binabalanse natin (because the economy is suffering and the unemployment rate is high, so we try to balance it) and it’s not an easy job,” he said.
“And the whole world, you can see that the whole world is really on its knees in trying to contain their own spikes and surges and we are no exemption to that,” he added.
Nevertheless, the Health secretary admitted that there is still room for improvement in the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There is always room for improvement, we can always do things better. But you see we have learned a lot after one year with regard to this virus, its epidemiology, clinical management has tremendously improved,” he said.