Duterte signs proclamation declaring state of public emergency
MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday morning signed Proclamation 922 declaring a state of public health emergency throughout the country amid the worsening novel coronavirus (COVID-19) scare.
That same day, the Department of Health confirmed four more patients carrying the pathogen, bringing the national total to 10 confirmed patients.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III also confirmed the local transmission of COVID-19 in the
With the proclamation, the DOH may call upon the Philippine National Police (PNP) "and other law enforcement agencies to provide
All government agencies, local government units
The declaration facilitates the mobilization of resources, the intensifying of quarantine measures and ease of processes, while a "code red" alert means that all hospital personnel
BREAKING NEWS: President Rodrigo Duterte signs Proclamation No. 922 declaring a state of public health emergency throughout the
— Philstar.com (@PhilstarNews) March 9, 2020Phl due to COVID-19. | via @alexisbromero pic. twitter.com/FwZLdMPXVW
Under Republic Act 11332—the Mandatory Reporting of Notifiable Diseases and Health Events of Public Health Concern Act—a public health emergency refers to an “occurrence of an imminent threat of an illness or health condition which could pose a high probability of
Other initiatives
The World Health Organization (WHO) praised the measures undertaken by the DOH in its surveillance of the novel coronavirus scare in the Philippines.
This came after Duque, at the
"We need to respect the local chief executives decision to suspend classes," Duque asserted.
The Health secretary cited the following measures:
- Recommending Levels 2 and 3 hospitals to open triage areas in their emergency rooms for testing of COVID-19
- All Level 2 and 3 hospitals directed to attend to patients suspected and confirmed and with symptoms
Only severe at critical cases shall be referred to Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, San Lazaro Hospital and Lung Center of the Philippines- DOH will
be disclosing hospital names to combat fake news - DOH will
be requesting testing kits from China
"As much as 80% of confirmed cases of COVID-19 are mild," he said, though he admitted that a large part of the data used was coming from China and WHO.
The DOH earlier assured the public that 98% of COVID-19 patients eventually fully recover.
READ: 'Not a death sentence': DOH says 98% of
"Hospitals have infection prevention so there is no need to avoid going to these hospitals especially if you feel unwell," Duque said.
He also bared that the department already begun coordinating with the NDRRMC.
As of this writing, there are
Dr. Rabindra
At the same media briefing,
"
Update on fifth patient
Asked about the status of the fifth patient, a 62-year-old Filipino man, the Health secretary said the case was "guarded."
"This is a critical case. The elderly individual male has
"We're doing everything to save the life of this patient, but for critical cases,
LIST: Confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Philippines
According to Duque, existing data on patients of the virus shows that highest fatality is among males over 70 with underlying health conditions.
Duque also said that contact tracing for the man, who was a regular at a Muslim prayer hall in San Juan, was still ongoing. "
Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.
The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.
In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
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