In my previous blogpost, I posted a priest who is a physician with contacts in the poorer neighborhoods in Manila, reporting that omnicron is going around and will probably stop the epidemic. videolink
and yes we are in a surge, and some hospitals are full or having problems with staffing, but notice not a lot of deaths:
January 10 (GMT)
Updates
- 33,169 new cases and 145 new deaths in the Philippines [source]
The big problem is that it is hitting the provinces, where a lot of folks didn't get the vaccine: So the gov't is worried about any information that might discourage folks from being vaxxed.
So one answer is to shoot the messenger: For example, This Inquirer editorial supposedly refutes the priest's claim that omnicron will result in a lot of cases, but is mild, and will give you immunity. And that the ultimate result will be the end of the epidemic.
How dare he say that, says the editorial.
But it doesn't note that the doctor didn't make up the claim, but was quoting experts from both South Africa and Europe, including Dr. C.
The editorial also condemns the priest for saying that people are self treating at home:
But the editorial didn't make it clear that the priest is not causing the self treatment, but he is reporting what is already going on: (italics mine)....Something I have also observed.
as for blaming people for buying tylenol to treat their symptoms (instead of what alternative?)
Excuse me, there have been shortages of medicines here for a couple of weeks, not just tylenol but NSAIDs anti histamines and presumably other medicines.
The editorial is just echoing the govt/DOH here, in the same way that the US MSM echoes but doesn't question the US CDC.
as for anti vax stuff, I live a block from the Plaza where they are giving out shots, and there is now a line stretching 3 blocks, around the block to the east end of our compound.
the maid claims they are all getting boosters, but most of them look like young folk, not us old fogies who had the booster first, so our shots are 4 or 5 months old.
The editorial talks about the anti vax movement here, but it is not a big thing (what, does the DOH think there are a lot of right wing fundamentalist white racist Trump supporters in the provinces? DUH. ).
Give me a break: a lot of people didn't get the shot because they were working.
Farmers had a harvest, and to get the shot it meant taking an entire day off, and maybe finding they ran out of cards or vaccine so they'd have to come back.
Reality check: there is a fatalism here when it comes to disease: (although the middle class is Americanized enough to make health a priority).
So when Father reports people in the barangays (as opposed to the gated communities) who aren't that sick are staying home and self medicating: Well, he is just reporting what is happening in the barangays (not the gated communities of the rich). A lot of poor elderly died at home during the worse time of the epidemic, and there is no way of knowing if it was covid related or if it was heart attack/stroke or congestive heart failure that caused their shortness of breath (often from diabetes or high blood pressure, and maybe because they couldn't afford their medicine due to unemployment).
Unlike covid2, the Omnicron virus is airborne and can spread at a distance. So masks don't help. And that means spread through the crowded poor neighborhoods even if you obey the rules,
One dirty little secret in the USA about the high rate of covid deaths in minority communities was because, because even in the USA, they live in extended families in the same home.
That the editorial suggests people are catching it deliberately ignores this fact, and one wonders where they got that information? Did they do a poll asking people: hey when your neighbor was sick with omnicron, did you go to his house and ask him to cough in your face?
No, probably what happened is that someone went to the palenke and caught it, came into your house and then voila, everyone got infected, some got minor sniffles and a few started to cough.
Not deliberate but accidental.
Its not so much that people are getting the disease deliberately, but that it is so infectious that you catch it easily despite masks etc.
and with the problem of getting tested, why the complaint that they are self treating cold symptoms at home instead of waiting in line to get a test?
Father is right: If you have a cold, stay home and self medicate. Why not, since there is essentially no treatment unless you manage to buy black market Ivermectin, which the DOH is also trying to stop being prescribed.
The good news is that the imposition of martial law will not happen here under Duterte because the left doesn't trust him, and remembers Marcos.
That might not be true under the next president.
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update: a poor neighbor came for money because her kid is in the hospital. No not covid: they suspect dengue fever.
Just a reminder that there are other things out there that can make you sick.
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