The virus is here... the virus is here

Manila is continuing the strict quarantine for another two weeks.

PhilInquirer:

MANILA, Philippines (Updated)— Metro Manila will be placed under Alert Level 4 starting Sept. 16 until Sept. 30, which is the start of the pilot run of granular lockdowns, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said Tuesday...

Persons aged below 18 and above 65 and those with health risks, including pregnant women, must stay at home unless they need to access essential goods and services or have to go to work.

there is talk of letting the vaccinated to be free of the restrictions but since the rules are changing every day, I'm not sure where it stands.

facebook is being used to alert folks on the latest news here.

we are still in a modified shutdown.

Supplies are okay so far, but this part is making it hard for us to deliver rice to the supermarkets in Manila. 

Intrazonal and interzonal travel for persons who are not required to stay at their homes may be allowed subject to guidelines of their destination local government unit.

In the meanwhile, it is the season to harvest rice, and we have been hit with heavy rains (but not wind thank God). 

we hope to harvest without any problem, but in other areas, the rice harvest was harmed by the first typhoon that went thru south of Manila.

Every day the maid or her mom report another death in our area (their family includes clerks and tricycle drivers so they know all the gossip in our barangay).

And Joy, who has a huge family and many friends who know she is a caregiver and I am a physician, are calling her for advice. Most of them are middle class so most of them can afford to see a doctor, and just want a second opinion on their lab/Xray or prescribed medicine.

Today was had a new one: Someone was prescribed Remdesvir, which cost 1500 plus pesos (over 30 dollars) and may or may not work. The price is a big problem, so I haven't seen it prescribed before.

Azithromycin is 350 pesos (7 dollars), and the Prednisone and various symptomatic medicines are quite cheap.

Now Duterte said we are allowed to let patients and doctors decide if they want to use Ivermectin... the DOH opposes it, but Duterte is a populist and has his connections to the middle and working class and knows they will take it anyway, so better to let them buy it at a pharmacy than risk a counterfeit or wrong dose by buying it elsewhere.

we had only rare cases of Covid until the last month, but now we are hearing of one case after another.

One pregnant nurse, a friend of Joy', who didn't get the vaccine because of the rumor it caused miscarriage. died. And now we hear another businessman died.

The maid said a woman died of a heart attack one day after the shot. So wait for rumors to start against the vaccine.

Most people are not vaccinated here: They gave it to the high risk elders and caregivers and now are on lower risk people. And several vaccines are used in the area: We elders got the Astrazeneca, whose main risk is blood clots in young women but low in the elderly .

They also offered the one shot J&J to medium risk folk, but ran out of that vaccine quickly. The lower risk are getting the Sinovax, e.g. our drivers got a dose because they deliver to Manila and are at risk.

The other vaccines are being used in Manila etc. What ever they can get. But the total vaccine rate is low, and we have a lot of elders in the Philippines. and many will die at home with family and not be counted as being from covid.

and how do you know if they died of covid? For example, the woman I mentioned above who just got the vaccine shot and died in the hospital of a heart attack the next day: Was it the shot? but she also tested positive for covid. And was an older lady with severe high blood pressure. 

a lot of folks can't afford their medicine for diabetes or high blood pressure, so deaths from heart attacks and strokes are common. But this won't help the rumors and anti vax fears by those who read the Chinese anti vax propaganda on the social networks.

Sigh.

And the maid reports cases in the rural town near our farms. I am unsure if this will affect our ability to harvest the rice. But unemployment is high here, so there will be workers to help.

There is contact tracing if you go to a bank or mall or restaurant. And if there is a case, they shut the business down and isolate the staff for ten days. This happened twice to Dr. Angie's medical office, and once to our bank, meaning I couldn't deposit checks from my pension for two weeks..

China is under strict quarantine but has an outbreak anyway.

which means that all the propaganda that the virus could be eliminated by quarantine/ masks and vaccines just won't work.

the newer varients are more infectious, and may spread a long way in the air like the original SARS. Ah, but what if the person has the illness and doesn't test positive, which is what happened there?

the push to vaccinate ignores two things: That the vaccine immunity wanes with time, and that those who have had the illness, even mild case, have some immunity.

Those who have had covid continue with immunity for at least six months, according to an article published by Yokohama City University.

then there is the question if, instead of testing if they have the virus, if people should be tested instead for immunity

So just test for immunity, except unless you have a medical degree, PBS say don't do it.because it's too hard to understand what it means.

so to vax over and over again, or just live with it?

dirty little secret: if you have had the vaccine or a mild case of Covid, even if you test negative, your immune system keeps a memory of how to make the antibodies and will start making them later if you are in contact with the disease (so you have partial immunity).

It's complicated.

Discussion here:

and the big worry here in the Philippines is not the virus per se, but that poor people who can't work and can't afford food or medicine might just up and start a revolution if they get hungry enough.

I worry here because I see malnutrition, and I know a lot of people can't afford their basic BP/Diabetes medicine. 

And kids with blondish hair of protein malnutrition among the beggars.

And lots of dog bites because they can't feed the dogs and threw them out on the street.

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update: If you thought the Delta variant was bad, well just wait.

Japan reports that the Mu variant is worse.

The new Mu variant of the novel coronavirus is more than seven times more resistant to antibodies created by vaccinations than the original strain of the virus, a study by a Japanese research team has found.