Wednesday, April 7, 2021

WHO worried over PH health-care capacity

ALL ABOUT 'AYUDA' Residents of Baseco Compound in Tondo, Manila, on Wednesday endure a queue under the sun just to get the cash assistance approved by the government for areas covered by the so-called NCR-Plus, where stricter quarantine has been enforced as the daily count of new Covid-19 infections and deaths hit new highs. -- NINO JESUS ORBETA

Regions

Maguindanao: State of calamity, clashes

COTABATO CITY—Four towns in Maguindanao are under a state of calamity as clashes since last month between government troops and Islamic State-linked gunmen, as well as a clan war, have displaced around 66,000 people. The municipalities of Shariff Saydona Mustapha, Mamasapano, Datu Saudi Ampatuan and Talitay need to look after families in 55 evacuation sites in 10 towns. -- Story by by EDWIN O. FERNANDEZ

News

DA sets price cap on imported pork

The Department of Agriculture is imposing a suggested retail price (SRP) on frozen imported pork beginning this Friday to protect consumers. The SRP for imported pork would be P270 a kilo for kasim (shoulder) and P350 a kilo for liempo (belly). Secretary William Dar said the price cap would ensure that consumers benefit from proposals to increase the volume of imports and slash pork tariffs. -- STORY BY KARL OCAMPO

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WHO worried over PH health-care capacity

By Maricar Cinco and Patricia Denise M. Chiu

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday said the Philippines was close to crossing the “red line” in exhausting its health-care capacity to handle the COVID-19 pandemic after recording the highest number of new cases and fatalities in the Western Pacific Region recently.

WHO officials said the current surge was due to multiple factors, including the emergence of “variants of concern” from the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the severe respiratory disease, the people’s lack of compliance to nonpharmaceutical interventions like minimum health protocols, and increased mobility.

“We are concerned about the situation in the Philippines,” said WHO Regional Director Dr. Takeshi Kasai. “We are concerned because the surge is really continuing and moving toward the so-called red line [when] the number of cases exceed or surpass the capacity of health care.”

“And we know that once we cross that red line, we put health-care workers in a very difficult situation and once health-care workers start [getting the] infection, the health-care capacity goes down,” he said at a press briefing to mark World Health Day on Wednesday.

Kasai stressed that it was “very, very important to avoid crossing this red line.”

Over 11K new cases

In its latest COVID-19 update, WHO noted that the Philippines reported 11,028 infections, the highest number of new cases recorded over a 24-hour period ending on April 5 among 37 countries in the Western Pacific.

The Philippines also has the highest number of fatalities in the region with a cumulative total of 13,245 on that day, followed by China with 4,851, it said.

Editorial

Lockdown— and what else?

Just a little over two weeks after presidential spokesperson Harry Roque crowed that the Duterte administration’s response to the devastating COVID-19 pandemic has been “excellent,” the so-called National Capital Region Plus was overwhelmed by skyrocketing daily infection cases, forcing the return of the most severe of quarantine measures.

Read full story: opinion.inquirer.net