Cops ordered to keep health workers safe from harm, discrimination
MANILA, Philippines — Philippine National Police chief General Archie Gamboa on Tuesday ordered police units across the archipelago to provide assistance and security to health workers leading the country’s battle against the new coronavirus.
This, after there were reports of hospital staff suffering abuse amid panic over COVID-19 infections.
“At this time of national health emergency, the Philippine National Police stands doubly committed to apply the full might of the law against any person who will lay hands on our health workers, thus, we shall do whatever it takes to protect them from crime, violence and any form of oppression and discrimination,” Gamboa said in a statement.
The police chief also said PNP personnel manning quarantine control checkpoints were instructed to extend assistance to frontliners—which may include escorting them to their assigned hospitals, if need be.
In Sultan Kudarat, a group of five men “ganged up” on a nurse when he was on his way to work and poured bleach at his face.
In Cebu City, chlorine was thrown at a nurse’s face.
Some frontliners were also refused access to public transport and laundry and were blocked and fined at checkpoints. Others were evicted from their homes.
The Department of Health on Monday said such as acts would not be tolerated, adding the agency will hold perpetrators of attacks liable.
“We appeal to the public to extend understanding and compassion to our healthcare workers. Our healthcare workers have responded to our country’s need with dedication, courage and selflessness. This is not the time for us to turn our backs on them,” DOH said.
It added: “It is not enough that we thank them. We need to protect them too.”
The main island of Luzon entered its third week of enhanced community quarantine to arrest the spread of the contagion that has now infected 1,546 people in the Philippines—78 of whom have died.
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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