The Department of Health (DOH) believes that the Philippines was able to “adjust appropriately and accordingly” in dealing with the Covid-19 virus—three years since the declaration of the pandemic. It was on March 11, 2020 that the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 as a pandemic. In the Philippines, then President Rodrigo Duterte ordered a lockdown on March 15, 2020 in Metro Manila to contain the spread of the virus. Since then, the Philippines has “adjusted so much because of the different effects of the pandemic to our healthcare system,” said DOH Undersecretary and Officer-in-Charge Maria Rosario Vergeire in a press briefing on Tuesday, March 14. “Suma total (In total), how we were able to adjust because of the circumstances, we were able to adjust appropriately and accordingly,” she said. Vergeire noted that the country’s health system has improved in terms of its surveillance system, facilities, and “clinical pathways.” Also, the country’s healthcare workforce has become more “flexible” in managing patients. “They have earned that expertise because they were assigned and deployed in different areas where they were most needed for the Covid-19 response,” she said. With these improvements, Vergeire believes that the country is “better prepared for the next pandemic to come” if ever there will be.

Manageable

At this point, the country’s Covid-19 situation remains “manageable,” said Vergeire. “What I can tell you confidently, we are able to manage the situation, and cases have been manageable for a number of months already, sana magtuloy-tuloy,” she said. Based on the latest weekly case bulletin,  a total of 983 new Covid-19 cases were recorded for the period of March 6 to 12. The average number of daily cases in the country during the said period was at 140. There are 9,084 patients who are still battling with Covid-19 nationwide as of Tuesday, March 14, as shown in the DOH Covid-19 tracker. Since 2020, the total number of confirmed cases stood at 4,078,137, including 4,002,827 recoveries and 66,226 deaths.

Covid-19 Origin

As several countries are emerging stronger against the coronavirus, Vergeire backed the statement of the World Health Organization (WHO) that it is “imperative” to determine the origin of Covid-19. “It is very important and we agree with WHO in really finding out the root cause of what started all of this. Kahit sa ibang mga sakit, kailangan lagi natin  nalalaman kung ano ang pinagmumulan ng sakit (Even in other diseases, we always need to know the source),” she said. “Kasi yun ang pinagtutuunan ng istratehiya para maitigil saan nagmumula ang sakit. Hindi pwede na basta gamutin nalang nang gamutin lahat  ng nagkakasakit at hindi bibigyan tugon saan galing ang sakit (Because that is where we will base our strategy to stop disease [from spreading]. We cannot just keep on treating those who are sick without knowing the origin of the disease),” she added. In a tweet last March 12, WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said “understanding #Covid19’s origins and exploring all hypotheses remains: a scientific imperative, to help us prevent future outbreaks [and]  moral imperative, for the sake of the millions of people who died and those who live with #LongCOVID.” Vergeire said that the theory of the WHO was that the Covid-19 virus came from wild animals from China, but there is no “final conclusion’ yet “based  on what they investigated.”