MANILA: Dozens of doctors’ groups on Saturday warned that the Philippines was losing the coronavirus fight, urging President Rodrigo Duterte to tighten a recently eased lockdown as cases surged and hospitals turned away patients.
Eighty medical associations representing tens of thousands of doctors signed the open letter, a day after the country posted a record single-day count of more than 4,000 new infections, pushing the total past 93,000.
“Healthcare workers are united in sounding off a distress signal to the nation — our health care system has been overwhelmed,” the letter said.
“We are waging a losing battle against COVID-19, and we need to draw up a consolidated, definitive plan of action.”
An increasing number of health workers have fallen ill or quit their jobs, while some packed hospitals are now refusing to admit new patients, it added.
The government has blamed poor compliance with health protocols for the sharp increase in infections.
The country imposed one of the harshest lockdowns in the world in mid-March, that kept people at home except to buy food and seek health treatment.
But the government recently loosened the restrictions to allow people to return to work after predictions that the Philippine economy will fall into recession, with millions of jobs already lost.
In the open letter, doctors urged Duterte to put the capital Manila and surrounding provinces back under “enhanced community quarantine” until August 15 to give the country time to “refine our pandemic control strategies.”
In response, Duterte’s spokesman Harry Roque said the government was balancing the health and economy of the nation.
“The strict lockdown in Metro Manila has served its purpose, and we need to intensify other strategies,” he added.
Health department officials earlier this week acknowledged hospital bed availability was drying up and the government has had limited success in hiring new doctors, nurses and other health care workers.
The letter said contact tracing was “failing miserably” and public transport and workplace settings were often unsafe.
Lei Alfonso, an official of the Philippine Society of Public Health Physicians, told a news conference on Saturday that the developments “will push us to the brink to become the next New York City, where Covid-19 patients die at home or (on) stretchers.”
President Duterte on Thursday called on Filipinos to keep faith in his ability to swiftly procure a vaccine to be produced by China, a key supporter of his rule.
Philippines losing coronavirus war, doctors warn Duterte
https://arab.news/9kfyk
Philippines losing coronavirus war, doctors warn Duterte
- ‘Healthcare workers are united in sounding off a distress signal to the nation — our health care system has been overwhelmed’
- The government recently loosened restrictions to allow people to return to work
In Ethiopia, Tigrayans fear return to ‘full-scale war’
- Flights have been suspended into Tigray since Thursday and local authorities reported drone strikes on goods lorries
- The international community fears the fighting could turn into an international conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea
ADDIS ABABA: Tigrayans in northern Ethiopia fear a return to all-out war amid reports that clashes were continuing between local and federal forces on Monday, barely three years after the last devastating conflict in the region.
The civil war of 2020-2022 between the Ethiopian government and Tigray forces killed more than 600,000 people and a peace deal known as the Pretoria Agreement has never fully resolved the tensions.
Fighting broke out again last week in a disputed area of western Tigray called Tselemt and the Afar region to the east of Tigray.
Abel, 38, a teacher in Tigray’s second city Adigrat, said he still hadn’t recovered from the trauma of the last war and had now “entered into another round of high anxiety.”
“If war breaks out now... it could lead to an endless conflict that can even be dangerous to the larger east African region,” added Abel, whose name has been changed along with other interviewees to protect their identity.
Flights have been suspended into Tigray since Thursday and local authorities reported drone strikes on goods lorries on Saturday that killed at least one driver.
In Afar, a humanitarian worker, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said there had been air strikes on Tigrayan forces and that clashes were ongoing on Monday, with tens of thousands of people displaced.
AFP could not independently verify the claims and the government has yet to give any comment on the clashes.
In the regional capital Mekele, Nahom, 35, said many people were booking bus tickets this weekend to leave, fearing that land transport would also be restricted soon.
“My greatest fear is the latest clashes turning into full-scale war and complete siege like what happened before,” he told AFP by phone, adding that he, too, would leave if he could afford it.
Gebremedhin, a 40-year-old civil servant in the city of Axum, said banks had stopped distributing cash and there were shortages in grocery stores.
“This isn’t only a problem of lack of supplies but also hoarding by traders who fear return of conflict and siege,” he said.
The region was placed under a strict lockdown during the last war, with flights suspended, and banking and communications cut off.
The international community fears the fighting could turn into an international conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, whose relations have been increasingly tense in recent months.
The Ethiopian government accuses the Tigrayan authorities and Eritrea of forging closer ties.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is “deeply concerned about... the risk of a return to a wider conflict in a region still working to rebuild and recover,” his spokesman said.
The EU said that an “immediate de-escalation is imperative to prevent a renewed conflict.”
