EDITORIAL | What has been done right and what we should do now in regards to COVID-19

by DREAM

Last May 26, New Zealand announced that it had no longer had any more patients in the hospital being treated for COVID-19, the fifth day in a row of reporting no new cases. Despite having a total of 1,499 cases, 1433 of those people have fully recovered from the disease. The nation’s death toll remains at 21, significantly lower than most. Lockdown restrictions have been relaxed, with around 400,000 New Zealanders being allowed to go back to work and 75% of its economy functioning.

So how did New Zealand manage to restrict the spread of the virus so quickly and reduce casualties? Three things: widespread testing, immediate action, and reliable information. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was quick to impose travel bans and lockdown measures once the virus started to appear. To this day, New Zealand has tested 126,066 people for the disease, with around 8000 being carried out daily. Ardern communicated with the nation’s public health department in order to efficiently take action and prevent the spread of misinformation. These measures are what allowed New Zealand to successfully combat the virus without putting people’s jobs or lives at risk.

Up until now, President Rodrigo Duterte fails to take any of these measures.

In the midst of the fourth extension of the enhanced community quarantine declared on Metro Manila, people are still clamoring for mass testing while others are out of their jobs with no source of income. The Philippine government refuses to listen to its people and instead focuses resources on things like heavy military control and the ABS-CBN shutdown. These actions do not address, but rather, create more problems, ignoring those starving in the streets and even choosing to shoot them if they step out of line.

Meanwhile, Taiwan has been able to combat the virus, with only 440 cases and 7 deaths in a population of millions. President Tsai Ing-wen not only established early border controls and quarantine but also focused on other preventative measures such as distributing personal protective equipment.

It is imperative that the Philippine government follows suit if it wants to make up for past mistakes in order to rebuild the economy and save lives. This means immediate and accessible testing, reliable information dissemination, reliance on accurate medical expertise, and more. Only then may the Philippines be successful in battling a global pandemic; only then will Filipinos be truly safe.