Fighting to keep people healthy

Manila is slowly going into isolation:

it doesn't affect us yet (we are in the provinces). But Joy is there delivering rice today to our private customers who are stocking up in case they get quarantined.

How serious is it? They have forbidden people kissing the foot of the Black Nazarene statue... and stopped mass in some Metro Manila areas. You can still marry or get your child baptised, but not with a crowd. You can still go inside to pray, and hand saniizer is present in the entranceway (presumably next to the holy water).
and as to weddings:

“For weddings, you can’t stop love, you know. If they push through with it, maybe they can cut down on the number of guests. They would also reduce their expenses. We should remember that mass gatherings are prohibited for now,” Lopez said.

does isolation/quarantine/keeping your distance work?
CDC report on Singapore suggests it helps.

Singapore implemented strong surveillance and containment measures, which appear to have slowed the growth of the outbreak. These measures might be useful for detection and containment of COVID-19 in other countries that are experiencing the start of local COVID-19 outbreaks. Singapore is a small island city-state, and nations with other characteristics might need to adapt and augment Singapore’s approaches to achieve the same level of effectiveness.

On the other hand, they tend to be obedient there, so that would be considered a "best case scenerio".


The Saudis have a ban on Filipinos entering that country... except for medical personnel, who will be allowed in but screened carefully.

if the Wuhan flu hits the crowded dormitories housing foreign workers, it could be a disaster...foreign workers not only do a lot of the construction/oil industry work, but they staff many of the private shops and businesses. and many more affluent families have overseas caregivers/maids.

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But Wuhan flu is not the only danger to life.

the CDC has a report on who is dying of overdoses: 70 percent of overdose deaths involved opioids, including Fentanyl or fentalyl analogues.

So beneath the hysteria, there are reports that the DEA has arrested 250 middle and higher levels of those in one of the more murderous Mexican drug cartel organizations.