{"id":255508,"date":"2020-05-20T07:45:58","date_gmt":"2020-05-20T11:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=255508"},"modified":"2020-05-20T07:45:58","modified_gmt":"2020-05-20T11:45:58","slug":"health-chief-says-ph-already-on-second-wave-of-covid-19-infections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/05\/20\/health-chief-says-ph-already-on-second-wave-of-covid-19-infections\/","title":{"rendered":"Health chief says PH already on second wave of COVID-19 infections"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III (File Photo: Senate of the Philippines\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said on Wednesday, May 20 that the Philippines is now on the \u201csecond wave\u201d of infections from the global pandemic caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).<\/p>\n

Duque revealed this during the Senate hearing on the government\u2019s response to the COVID-19 pandemic when asked by Senator Ramon Revilla Jr. on how the second wave should be prevented.<\/p>\n

“Actually\u00a0nasa<\/em>\u00a0second wave\u00a0tayo <\/em>(Actually, we are on the second wave),” said the Department of Health (DOH) secretary. \u201cNung nagkaroon po tayo ng tatlong kaso ng mga<\/em> Chinese nationals from Wuhan. \u2018Yun po ay kinikilalang<\/em> first wave. Maliit lang na wave<\/em> (When we had our first three cases with the Chinese nationals from Wuhan, that was the first wave. It was a small wave)\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Yung<\/em> first wave natin nag-umpisa, batay po ito sa ating mga batikang<\/em> epidemiologist, na ang<\/em> first wave natin<\/em> happened sometime in January (The first wave happened sometime in January, according to our renowned epidemiologists),\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

However, the health official did not detail when the second wave of infections began or what parameters were used to determine the timeline but referred to the opinions of Dr. John Wong who is working along with the sub technical working group data analytics with the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF).<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a medical advisor of the government reacted different to Duque’s statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve never flattened anything yet,\u201d Dr. Benjamin Co said in an interview with ABS-CB. Co is a pediatric infectious diseases specialist and a medical advisor to the government task force on COVID-19.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s coming from a definition, probably, that [the curve] was flat from the very beginning then came a few cases,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

DOH Secretary Duque said that they are now focused on preventing a third wave of cases as the implemented community quarantines are slowly being eased. Earlier, he also warned that a third wave of cases may occur in Metro Manila if it abruptly shifts to general quarantine.<\/p>\n

\u201cGinagawa po natin ang lahat para nga ma<\/em>-flatten ‘yung<\/em> epidemic curve at para nang sa ganon ay magkaron po tayo ng sapat na panahon na mapaunland ta maitaas ang ating kakayahan sa sistemang pangkalusugan<\/em>. (We are doing what we can to flatten the epidemic curve and to have enough time to improve and increase our health system’s capacity),\u201d assured the health official.<\/p>\n

Four months since the “first wave” hit the country; the number of COVID-19 cases has soared up to 13,221, with 842 deaths and 2,932 recoveries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said on Wednesday, May 20 that the Philippines is now on the \u201csecond wave\u201d of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":151617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-255508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-kathleen-mae-guerrero","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255508"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":255514,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255508\/revisions\/255514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}