Situational Analysis of COVID19 - Philippines

As of April 19, 2020 (about 5 months after COVID19 was discovered in December 2019 in Wuhan, China)

As of April 19, 2020 (about 3 months after COVID19 was confirmed to have spread to the Philippines on January 30, 2020)

As of April 18, 2020 -

All of the country's 17 regions have recorded at least a case.

2020 coronavirus pandemic in the Philippines

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_the_Philippines

NOTE: DATA MAY CHANGE AS DAYS GO BY.

The 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic was confirmed to have spread to the Philippines on January 30, 2020, when the first case of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was confirmed in Metro Manila. It involved a 38-year-old Chinese woman who was confined in the San Lazaro Hospital in Manila. The second case was confirmed on February 2, that of a 44-year-old Chinese man who died a day earlier, which was also the first confirmed death from the disease outside mainland China.[1][2][3] The first case of someone without travel history abroad was confirmed on March 5, a 62-year-old male who frequented a Muslim prayer hall in San Juan, Metro Manila, raising suspicions that a community transmission of COVID-19 is already underway in the Philippines. The man's wife was confirmed to have contracted COVID-19 on March 7, which was also the first local transmission to be confirmed.[4][5]

As of April 18, 2020, there have been 6,087 confirmed cases of the disease in the country. Out of these cases, 516 recoveries and 397 deaths were recorded. The Philippines has conducted 56,048 tests as of April 17, including repeat tests, and have tested over 49,613 individuals.[6][7][8][9][10] On April 17, the Philippines became the second most affected country in Southeast Asia, after being surpassed by Indonesia;[11] the country however, for a brief period, was the most affected country in the region after surpassing Malaysia on April 14.[12] The largest single-day increase in the number of confirmed cases was on March 31, when 538 new cases were announced.[13] Meanwhile, the smallest single-day increase since the last week of March was on April 4, when only 76 new cases were announced. All of the country's 17 regions have recorded at least a case.

The Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) in Muntinlupa, Metro Manila, is the medical facility where suspected cases are being tested for COVID-19 since January 30, 2020. Before that date, confirmatory tests were made abroad. Currently, sixteen sub-national laboratories (in Metro Manila, Baguio, Bicol, Cebu, Davao, and Iloilo) are also conducting testings while several laboratories are still undergoing proficiency testing before use.[14][15]

March 2020 – early spread[edit]

After a month of reporting no new cases, on March 6, the DOH announced two cases consisting of two Filipinos. One is a 48-year-old man with a travel history to Japan, returning on February 25 and reported symptoms on March 3.[25] The other is a 60-year-old man with a history of hypertension and diabetes who experienced symptoms on February 25 and was admitted to a hospital on March 1 when he experienced pneumonia. He had last visited a Muslim prayer hall in San Juan.[25] The DOH confirmed that the fifth case had no travel history outside the Philippines and is, therefore, the first case of local transmission. A sixth case was later confirmed, that of a 59-year-old woman who is the wife of the fifth case.[26] Since then, the Department of Health recorded a continuous increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in the country.[27]

Several measures were imposed to mitigate the spread of the disease in the country, including bans on travel to mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and South Korea. On March 7, 2020, the Department of Health (DOH) raised its "Code Red Sub-Level 1," with a recommendation to the President of the Philippines to impose a "public health emergency" authorizing the DOH to mobilize resources for the procurement of safety gear and the imposition of preventive quarantine measures.[22] On March 9, President Rodrigo Duterte issued Proclamation No. 922, declaring the country under a state of public health emergency.[28]

On March 12, President Duterte declared "Code Red Sub-Level 2," issuing a partial lockdown on Metro Manila to prevent a nationwide spread of COVID-19.[29][30] The lockdowns were expanded on March 16, placing the entirety of Luzon under an "enhanced community quarantine" or a total lockdown.[31] Other local governments outside Luzon followed in implementing similar lockdowns. On March 17, President Duterte issued Proclamation No. 929, declaring the Philippines under a state of calamity for a tentative period of six months.[32]

Additional facilities started to conduct confirmatory testing. On March 20, four facilities namely the Southern Philippines Medical Center in Davao City, Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City, Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center in Benguet, and San Lazaro Hospital in Manila began conducting tests as well augmenting the RITM.[33] Other facilities began operations as well in the following days.

On March 25, the President signed the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, which gave him additional powers to handle the outbreak.[34][35]

April 2020[edit]

Luzon's Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) originally set to end on April 14 was extended to the end of the month. The table below gives the date when the number of DOH's confirmed cases reaches a new thousand:

As one can see, there are about 1000 new cases every 4-5 days. Without the ECQ, it is uncertain whether the infection rate will increase, decrease, or remain the same.

https://www.doh.gov.ph/covid19tracker

TIMELINE: 1st confirmed COVID-19 cases in provinces, cities, towns in the Philippines

https://www.rappler.com/nation/255198-timeline-first-confirmed-coronavirus-cases-provinces-cities-towns-philippines

PROVINCES

CITIES

– Rappler.com

ROJ@20apr19