PH manages Covid-19 ‘very well’ with low mortality rate: Palace

FILE: Parents and guardians of students wait in line for the distributions of module for the online blended learning at the Pasay City West High School on Wednesday (Sept. 16, 2020). (PNA photo by Avito C. Dalan)

MANILA – The Philippines is doing “very well” in terms of controlling the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) with a low mortality rate, Malacañang said Thursday.

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque made this remark after a Bloomberg study showed that the Philippines ranked 46th out of 53 countries when it came to handling the Covid-19 health crisis.

“Pinaninindigan po natin (We maintain) that we have managed Covid-19 very well in this country,” he said in a Palace press briefing.

Roque said he has yet to see the study himself but disagreed that the Philippines was among the countries with the worst ranking.

“Hindi ko pa po nakikita yung pag-aaral na ‘yan. Hayaan niyo po titingnan ko yung pag-aaral na ‘yan pero tingin ko parang hindi po accurate ‘yan sa actual na nangyari (I haven’t seen the study yet. Allow me to check it, but I think it’s not accurate to the actual situation on the ground),” he said.

Even if the Philippines entered the list of 20 countries with the most number of Covid-19 cases, Roque said it fared well than other countries that made the top of the list.

He also noted that the country remains to have a low mortality rate at 1.75 percent,

“Nakikita niyo naman po bagamat number 22 na tayo sa buong mundo, hindi naman po tayo nasa absolute top in terms of numbers. Maliit po ang ating mortality rate at maliit din po yung nagkakasakit ng malala at kritikal (You see, even if we are number 22 in the world, we’re not on the absolute top in terms of numbers. We have a low mortality rate and only a few severe and critical cases),” he added.

Bloomberg’s Covid Resilience Ranking scores economies of more than USD200 billion on 10 key metrics: from growth in virus cases to the overall mortality rate, testing capabilities, and the vaccine supply agreements places have forged. The capacity of the local health-care system, the impact of virus-related restrictions like lockdowns on the economy, and citizens’ freedom of movement are also taken into account.

All the indicators are scored on a 0-100 scale, with 100 indicating the best performance and zero the worst. The rest fall in between, scaled by their distance from one another. The final Ranking score is the average of a place’s performance across the 10 indicators, equally weighted.

As of Nov. 23, the Philippines, with a resilience score of 48.9, fared better than seven countries namely Iran, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Peru, Argentina, and Mexico.

The Philippines has recorded 422,915 confirmed Covid-19 cases as of Nov. 25. Of this figure, 8,215 are fatalities while 386,955 are recoveries.

New Zealand, with a resilience score of 85.4, topped the list for its “decisive, swift action” against the pandemic.

Mexico, with a score of 37.6, fared the worst with a high positive test rate at 62 percent, suggesting undetected infection is widespread.