Wave of criticisms on Department of Health
This is the question foremost in the minds of health experts and lawmakers as they refuted the claim of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III that the Philippines is now experiencing a “second wave” of coronavirus infections.
Even Malacañang, through its official mouthpiece, can’t seem to agree but played down the issue by saying maybe the health secretary just had a different opinion.
Senator Richard J. Gordon described Duque’s claim as premature while Senator Panfilo Lacson completely disagreed with the health chief, saying the country has yet to get past the first wave.
In a television briefing, presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the country, indeed has yet to move past the first wave although data showed a gradual decrease in the number of cases.
Roque, however, did not make a big deal out of it. He said Duque’s claim was “just a terminology on when the big wave is coming.”
“This is just a minor issue because we are not arguing if transmissions should be avoided,” he said.
The issue stemmed from Duque’s remark on Wednesday that the country is now experiencing a second wave of COVID-19 cases, arguing that the first wave occurred in January when three Chinese nationals contracted the disease.
“That three is just too small to be considered a wave. Let’s just say that he was not wrong, and he just had a different opinion,” Roque said.
Late Thursday, Duque, after taking the heat over his pronouncements, issued a clarification, saying the country actually is still under the “first major wave of sustained community transmission.”
Speaking before the House committee on health, Duque still stood by his earlier statement, but said it was a “casual expression of an epidemiologic fact.”
Rise and drop
The Department of Health (DoH) explained that the rise-and-drop of cases would still be a considered a wave even if it’s just a few infections in the context of epidemiology.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the first wave in January was followed by a lull in February, since there were few recorded coronavirus infections at that time.
Medical experts contradicted the DoH, saying that the lull in between emerging cases does not mean the first wave has ended.
Benjamin Co, chief of infectious diseases of pediatrics at the University of Santo Tomas Hospital, said in a television interview that the first three confirmed cases of coronavirus were just “sporadic cases.”
He also noted that the lull of cases in February might be a result of several factors, including limited testing and contact tracing.
The Philippines initially struggled to conduct coronavirus tests with limited number of laboratories equipped to process results.
Co said the DoH should be more “prudent” in its declarations and said that making an absolute statement about virus waves is “unwise,” noting that the science of pandemics is “murky.”
Prudence urged
“I think we need to be more prudent when we describe second waves or third waves, because it can cause more psychological problems,” he told ANC.
“We’re already in a situation where a lot of people are not really comfortable being locked down for a certain period of time, so we try to choose the terms that the public can understand hopefully much better instead of using terms that are generally more frightful,” Co added.
Dr. Teddy Herbosa, special adviser to the government’s COVID-19 task force, also noted that the first three cases were acquired by the patients from other countries and not through a community transmission.
“No. You cannot consider the three cases in January as the first wave as these were imported with no community transmission,” he told the Daily Tribune in a Twitter exchange.
“I feel we are still in the first wave although we have peaked and we are awaiting declaration or a true second wave,” he added.
Herbosa also said that a second wave of the outbreak might be caused by importation of cases or from the influx of repatriated overseas Filipino workers.
Dr. Tony Leachon, also a special adviser to the COVID-19 task force, said it is “counterintuitive” to relax restrictions on movement if the country is experiencing a second wave.
“It is counterintuitive if you eased lockdown if we are on a second wave. If we eased lockdown because we have improved slightly in other barangays while not in some,” he said in a radio interview.
The DoH also claimed that the second wave of infections began in March and reached its peak on the last day of the month when the country recorded 538 new cases of COVID-19.
The second wave continues up to the present now that the Philippines has over 13,000 virus cases, the department said.
Premature claim
In a television interview, Gordon said that the statement made by the Health Chief remains premature as the Philippines is still gaining momentum when it comes to the reported COVID-19 cases.
“I think (it) was premature… Certainly, he is under pressure not only from his peers or from the Cabinet but from everybody. ‘Let’s move it,’” he said.
“We are still gaining momentum right now. Hopefully, we can indeed pass the first wave,” Gordon added.
The lawmaker, who also chairs the Philippine Red Cross which conducts almost half of the country’s COVID-19 tests, said that the worst is yet to come as the Philippines has yet to test two percent of its population.
Lacson, in a separate interview, disagreed with Duque’s statement saying that the Philippines has yet to overcome the first wave of COVID-19.
“Not only do I not agree. But medical experts have also expressed their disagreement with the statement attributed to Secretary Duque that we are now into the second wave, because we have not yet got past the first wave. So how can we say we are already confronting the second wave?” he said.
Lacson reiterated that the loopholes in the data maintained by the DoH will not help the government flatten the COVID-19 curve.
“It’s not accurate data, they tested 10,000 people last 1 May, they should come out with those cases or the infection on that particular date, not 14 days after. If we base our decision in inaccurate data, chances are we’ll be coming up with wrong decisions or wrong conclusions,” he pointed out.
Day of reckoning
Lacson, meantime warned of a possible day of reckoning for the DoH as he noted a ‘pattern of overpricing’ in the health agency in the purchase of extraction machine and personal protective equipment (PPE).
Lacson warned the Health officials of possible investigation on the matter after the country addresses the COVID-19 crisis as the senator scrutinized DoH’s procurement of nucleic acid extractor and PPE during the Senate Committee of the Whole hearing last Wednesday.
“So there’s a pattern of overpricing. Not this time, we are in the middle of a crisis. We should not be distracting DoH and other government instrumentalities by conducting an investigation. But I think there should be a day of reckoning on all this,” Lacson said.
The lawmaker implied that the DoH is “seizing an opportunity for self-aggrandizement out of a crisis,” calling it as the high form of “callousness and greed.”
Last Tuesday, Lacson bared before the Senate Committee of the Whole hearing that the DoH, through the help of the Department of Budget and Management-Procurement Service, procured 10 King Fisher nucleic acid extractor machines priced at P4 million per unit.
The senator compared it to the Sansure nucleic acid extractors bought by the private sector, Project ARK, which were procured at a price of P1.75 million per unit.
Meanwhile, Senator Nancy Binay slammed Duque over his claim that asymptomatic COVID-19 patients cannot transmit coronavirus to other people.
“This is quite alarming when your very own health secretary says that considering that it is contrary to what the World Health Organization (WHO) is saying,” Binay said in her manifestation during the continuation of the Senate’s Committee of the Whole’s hearing on the government’s overall strategy against COVID-19.
The senator cited WHO’s 2 April information posted on its website reporting that: “There are few reports of laboratory-confirmed cases who are truly asymptomatic, and to date, there has been no documented asymptomatic transmission. This does not exclude the possibility that it may occur.”
© Daily Tribune | MJ Blancaflor