{"id":268755,"date":"2020-09-15T07:45:54","date_gmt":"2020-09-15T11:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=268755"},"modified":"2020-09-15T07:45:54","modified_gmt":"2020-09-15T11:45:54","slug":"phs-covid-19-response-deserves-very-good-grade-roque","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/09\/15\/phs-covid-19-response-deserves-very-good-grade-roque\/","title":{"rendered":"PH’s Covid-19 response deserves ‘very good’ grade: Roque"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: SWAB TEST. Several government employees and private individuals wait for their turn for the swab testing at mega swabbing center for Covid-19 in the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City. Personnel of the Philippine Red Cross (PRC) collect and do the test through Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) machines. (PNA photo by Jess M. Escaros Jr.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 Malaca\u00f1ang on Tuesday gave a \u201cvery good grade\u201d of 85 percent on the country\u2019s overall response to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.<\/p>\n

In an online briefing, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said the government scored a high mark because it was able to prevent the dire predictions of Covid-19 infections from becoming a reality.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d like to highlight that number one,\u00a0iyon nga po \u2018no, iyong<\/em>\u00a0expectations\u00a0ng mga dalubhasa, mga<\/em>\u00a0mathematicians\u00a0na aabot na tayo dapat ng<\/em>\u00a0three million\u00a0noong buwan pa ng Hunyo \u2013 hindi po nangyari iyan<\/em>. (the expectations of experts, mathematicians, that [the number of infections] would reach three million by June, did not happen),\u201d Roque said.<\/p>\n

Roque said the government was also able to maintain a low case fatality rate at 1.7 percent and keep the country\u2019s healthcare system from being overwhelmed with 50 percent available ICU bed capacity.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo all in all, I think we deserve a very good grade. I would give it a grade of 85 percent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Roque also touted the Philippines\u2019 coronavirus testing policy as the best in Asia, adding that it is the \u201cbiggest strength\u201d of the country\u2019s Covid-19 response.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe clearly have the best testing policy in the whole of Asia and probably in the whole world because we have exceeded three million and as a percentage of total population,\u00a0ano na po iyan, lubus-lubusan na po iyan doon sa sinasabi nilang<\/em>\u00a03 percent\u00a0na dapat na ma<\/em>-test\u00a0ang<\/em>\u00a0population\u00a0at patuloy pa po tayo \u2018no<\/em>\u00a0(that is more than the recommendation of testing 3 percent of the country\u2019s population),\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said the government will still continue to increase the testing and \u201cI think we will have the highest number of testing, one of the highest in the whole world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, that\u2019s clearly, our biggest strength,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Roque, however, admitted that the country still has to brush up its contact tracing efforts.<\/p>\n

He noted that this part of the country\u2019s response can be improved with the newly-signed Bayanihan to Recover as One law, which allocates a total of PHP5 billion for the hiring of at least 50,000 contact tracers by the Department of the Interior and Local Government.<\/p>\n

He also stressed the need for more quarantine facilities if the strict no home quarantine policy will be implemented.<\/p>\n

The Department of Health (DOH) on Tuesday reported 3,544 new Covid-19 infections, raising the country\u2019s overall tally to 269,407 with only 62,055 active cases.<\/p>\n

It also logged 395 new recoveries and 34 deaths, bringing the total number of recoveries to 207,352 and the number of deaths to 4,663.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 Malaca\u00f1ang on Tuesday gave a \u201cvery good grade\u201d of 85 percent on the country\u2019s overall response to the coronavirus …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":268756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-filane-mikee-cervantes","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268755","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=268755"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":268757,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268755\/revisions\/268757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}