My daughter in law, Joy, is over her "bronchitis". Everyone here had it except me: The cook had a mild case, as did Ruby, my granddaughter. But both Joy and our maid ran a fever and had a bad cough for five days.
No, Joy didn't get a covid test: she had one shot of the AstroZeneca vaccine and figures she is immune. Besides, she gets a covid test every time they have to go to Manila to deliver rice and always tests negative, and it is expensive (100 dollars of the most accurate test for those delivering food etc. to Manila, and it has to be done within 72 hours of the trip).
Ruby had the full Moderna vaccine in the USA but still had to go into quarantine to enter the Philippines for summer break. But she needed one to visit her cousin in Manila...but since they are in shutdown they just sat around and gossiped and watched TV since most of the indoor stuff is limited or closed.
And now news from Manila is panic at the Delta variant: after starting to open up in the last few weeks, we now learn that Manila will go into full shut down on Friday.
and although there are no major demonstrations or refusing to follow the law, as in Europe and the USA, there are more complaints about it in the social media.
there are proposals to let certain areas with high vaccination rates to move about in their area, but so far no official decision.
and the gov't is worried because a lot of people who are out of work are fleeing back to their rural homes.
I had to laugh at one British news paper who said they are fleeing the floods: Because flooding of the streets in Manila goes on all the time, but the poor are going "home" to their families because they fear being stuck in isolation again. No work for them and money is running out. But in the provinces, hey the family has to take care of their own...and maybe they can work to help in their family's rice fields.
so our province will have border checks on folks going in and out.
Rice planting has been delayed due to the heavy rains, the rains are still daily but not severe, so Kuya told them to start planting rice, figuring if there is a major storm it is early in the season to destroy the crop he can just plant again later.
the Manila shutdown means more money to deliver rice (we have to test our drivers for each delivery, 100 dollars for a test that is only good for 72 hours).
and now, we probably won't be getting any rent from our property there.
In the USA, the law preventing landlords from throwing out their renters is now stopped since jobs are back. But I had to laugh. You see, when I rented my house after moving east, there was a law that you could not throw out a renter during the winter. This was to stop frozen pipes, electrical fires etc. in empty houses. So every year, the renters would stop paying rent in October and move out in May after living free for six months. Yes, we could sue them, but heck: they didn't have money and they might just go back and burn the house down in revenge, so we just shrugged and hoped the next renter was more honest.
Here, we rent out a double home (the front 2 story home is a shop, the back smaller home is for the renter to live in or for storage). And we haven't been paid for over a year, since their business is not making much money. So two months ago, things had improved and they sent a check that didn't bounce. Alas, now Manila is closed again, so I guess we'll be minus that income for another couple months. The alternative? An empty house/shop which will be looted and destroyed. And the renters were good until Covid hit.
Sigh.
here we have been partly open. True, you have to mask and for some shops/banks etc. you also need a face shield.
They take your name and address for contact tracing when you go inside the bank etc... so last week I went to the bank and it was closed, because someone who had been there tested positive. So now they have to clean up the place and keep the employees in quarantine for 14 days.
No problem: There is another branch of the bank nearby. Except that branch won't process my US check that transfers my pension here. And now with Manila shut down there again will be problems with courier service that moves the paper checks etc. to Manila to process.
Last year the same thing happened, but not for two weeks but for three months. But I did arrange to have money wired here then, and will probably arrange the same thing if the bank is still unable to do it next week.
Now with people fleeing back home, more local cases are expected...statistics sound terrible, until you realize that
1) there are ten million people who live in the Manila area
and
2) a lot of people with mild cases will never be tested, and the elders might just die at home without being listed as a covid death.
Statistics: from the Inquirer:
Case update
The DOH on Wednesday (May 26) recorded 5,310 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total active coronavirus cases in the country to 46,037.
and statistics since the start of the epidemic:
The country’s total caseload is now 1,193,967. Of the tally, 1,127,770 patients survived while 20,169 died.
so how many were tested?
...the DOH said at least 36,630 individuals had been tested on May 24 of which 13.5 percent was positive for SARS Cov2.
and what about the shots?
Vaccination drive Data from the National Task Force (NTF) against COVID-19 showed that as of May 25, out of the 8,279,050 available vaccine doses in the country, a total of 4,495,375 had already been administered nationwide. Of the the, 3,466,341 were first shots, while 1,029,061 were for second ones. Read more: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1437853/as-cases-decline-in-ncr-covid-19-takes-a-detour-to-provinces#ixzz72PlsMwHWTotal population of the Philippines is 110 million so there is a long way to go to get everyone vaccinated. But the vaccines were mainly given to high risk folks (elderly, diabetes, caregivers, shop keepers). and the population here is young.
The real question is if herd immunity will kick in and slow the spread. Not a lot of information or statistics about herd immunity: yet with breakthrough cases despite being given the vaccine, one does wonder about the immune status of those who have recovered especially from minor cases that had never been officially diagnosed.
oh well: It's God's will.
We have to shut down, and Duterte got rid of a lot of bad cops which means ordinary folks can't bribe them to look the other way when you break the law. But when I read the low numbers of hospitalized, I wonder how long until someone says: Hey, more people are dying of dengue fever or untreated cancer than covid.
(we just buried two young people with cancer The bank manager and the cousin of our maid). Sigh.
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update:
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