MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines may have a high rate of COVID-19 transmission, but it does not have that many deaths due to the respiratory disease compared to other countries, President Rodrigo Duterte said.
Duterte said this after the country recorded 22,366 new COVID-19 cases, the highest tally logged in a single day since the pandemic began last year.
“There’s a rise of COVID cases all over. Hirap ang America ngayon, ang Europe is suffering from maraming namatay, Turkey, maraming patay. Saudi Arabia, mas marami ang patay,” Duterte said in a taped speech aired Tuesday.
(There’s a rise of COVID cases all over. America is having a hard time, Europe is suffering from many deaths, Turkey has many deaths, Saudi Arabia has even more deaths.)
“Ito, atin, hawa lang. Ang patay natin, hindi masyado ganoon karami,” he added.
(Here, we have mostly transmissions. Our deaths are not that many.)
Health officials have also confirmed 33,330 persons have so far died due to COVID-19 as of August 30.
Duterte acknowledged the need to “recalibrate” the country’s COVID-19 response and to study possibly imposing granular lockdowns to curb virus transmission.
“Whether the rise in the number of cases is due to the Delta variant or not, we need to recalibrate our response,” said Duterte.
“Although we have seen the positive effect of the recent ECQ [enhanced community quarantine] in NCR which lowered the reproduction rate, humina ang hawaan of the virus, we are also evaluating whether granular or localized lockdowns would work best in our current situation. Kailangan pagaralan ito ng task force, ng National Task Force [against COVID-19],” he added.
(Although we have seen the positive effect of the recent ECQ in NCR which lowered the reproduction rate, the virus transmission has weakened, we are also evaluating whether granular or localized lockdowns would work best in our current situation. The National Task Force has to study this.)
Malacañang earlier said the government is now leaning towards the use of granular lockdowns instead of imposing wide areas under community quarantine classifications.
Under granular lockdowns, only the movement of persons in specific buildings, streets, zones and the like are restricted by local government units.