‘India scenario’ of COVID-19 surge ‘very possible’ in PH — Gordon

MANILA, Philippines — A pandemic scenario similar to India, which has been seeing a massive surge in COVID-19 infections, is “very, very possible” in the Philippines, Senator Richard Gordon said Monday.

“Yes, I think there’s an India scenario that can happen in the Philippines,” Gordon said in a media forum hosted by the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP), when asked if an “India scenario” can be seen in the country.

“An India scenario is very, very possible here, especially [that] it’s a very vicious virus that they have there,” he added.

Gordon serves as chairman of the Philippine Red Cross, which has been very active in COVID-19 testing and tracing in the country amid the pandemic.

India has been seeing aggressive virus resurgence with the discovery of the so-called double-mutant variant in the South Asian nation.

READ: India COVID-19 deaths surge again, more global aid flown in

On Sunday, India logged a daily rise in COVID-19 fatalities of over 4,000, raising its death toll to 270,000.

Meanwhile, cases grew by 311,170—the smallest rise in daily cases in over three weeks.

Gordon stressed the importance of ramped-up testing and tracing as well as vaccinations.

“What should we be looking out for? Well, testing, are we doing our job? That’s your dashboard. Are we doing a decent job testing?” he asked.

According to the senator, the country got “overconfident” when restrictions were first relaxed.

“Look at what happened to us, we were lazy in terms of policing our people. All you have to do is [ask] ‘Do you have a mask?’ and if you don’t have a mask, the government should constantly provide masks,” he said.

“If I had my way, I would even give a bar of soap and also, exaggeratedly enough, even a meter stick so that people are not gonna come near them. There are many things that we can do, not eating together, that’s important. Again, tracing. How can you fight something that you do not know who it is,” he added.

He said it was important to trace possible COVID-19 cases to determine the “severity of the pandemic” in an area.

“It’s like a crime report. You have a crime map and you show where the severity of the pandemic is hitting particular communities and you go in there, lock it down before it spreads, and lock perhaps an extra few kilometers from that area and start testing everybody so that you prevent it,” Gordon said.

The Philippines on Sunday recorded 5,790 additional COVID-19 infections, bringing the country’s total caseload to 1,143,963.

Of the total, 54,904 or 4.8 percent are active cases that are mostly mild or asymptomatic at 95.4 percent.

Meanwhile, 1,069,868 patients or 93.5 of all cases have recovered. The death toll rose to 19,191 on Sunday, with 140 new fatalities added to the tally.

The Philippines likewise detected 10 new cases of the India COVID-19 variant.

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