{"id":255542,"date":"2020-05-20T22:34:09","date_gmt":"2020-05-21T02:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=255542"},"modified":"2020-05-20T22:34:09","modified_gmt":"2020-05-21T02:34:09","slug":"medialdea-says-ph-not-on-2nd-wave-of-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/05\/20\/medialdea-says-ph-not-on-2nd-wave-of-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Medialdea says PH not on 2nd wave of Covid-19"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea at Barangay Sagonsongon in Marawi City on March 15, 2018. ROBINSON NI\u00d1AL JR.\/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea on Wednesday said the Philippines is not on the second wave of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.<\/p>\n

“Wala pa tayo sa<\/em>\u00a0second wave.\u00a0Eh dinadasal natin. Malakas ho siguro tayo magdasal<\/em>\u00a0(We’re not on the second wave yet. We’re praying. Perhaps we pray hard),” Medialdea said in a media interview on the sidelines of the launch of the Balik Probinsiya program.<\/p>\n

Medialdea distanced Malaca\u00f1ang from the earlier statement of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, saying the country has yet to experience a second wave.<\/p>\n

“Alam mo hindi<\/em>\u00a0pronouncement\u00a0‘yan ng Presidente ‘yan or ano. Kailan ba lumabas yung<\/em>\u00a0second wave (You know, that is not the President’s pronouncement. When did the second wave start)? That we will have to see,” he said.<\/p>\n

Medialdea, meanwhile, said Filipinos should not think that a second wave could take place in the country after quarantine protocols have been eased.<\/p>\n

“Wag natin i<\/em>-expect,\u00a0wag nating asahan puwede ba<\/em>\u00a0(Let’s not expect or anticipate it),” he said.,<\/p>\n

Senator Christopher “Bong” Go, who was present in the same event, admitted that a second wave would take a toll on the country’s Covid-19 response efforts.<\/p>\n

“Mahirapan tayo pag nasa<\/em>\u00a0second wave (We will have a hard time if we go through a second wave),” he said.<\/p>\n

Physician Tony Leachon, adviser to the Inter-Agency Task Force on Covid-19, also disagreed with Duque.<\/p>\n

“When you say second wave, it means you have flattened the first one. We’re still on the first wave,” he said.<\/p>\n

In a hybrid Senate hearing on Wednesday, Duque told senators that \u201cactually\u201d the Philippines is currently on the second wave of the Covid-19 outbreak.<\/p>\n

“Yung<\/em>\u00a0first wave\u00a0natin nag-umpisa<\/em>, happened sometime in January\u00a0noong nagkaroon tayo ng<\/em>\u00a0three Chinese nationals from Wuhan (The first wave happened sometime in January when we had three Chinese nationals from Wuhan),” he said, referring to the first batch of infections detected in the country.<\/p>\n

He, however, did not clarify when the second wave began.<\/p>\n

Last Saturday (May 16), Metro Manila and other parts of the country at risk of Covid-19 infections transitioned to a less stringent modified enhanced community quarantine with more industries allowed to open.<\/p>\n

Only the cities of Cebu and Mandaue remain under enhanced community quarantine while the rest of the country are under general community quarantine.<\/p>\n

As of May 20, there are 13,221 confirmed cases of Covid-19 infection in the country, of which 842 are deaths and 2,932 are recoveries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea on Wednesday said the Philippines is not on the second wave of the coronavirus disease …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":229165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-255542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255542","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\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255542"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":255546,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255542\/revisions\/255546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}