Covid Politicized

 This morning, I was interviewed live in radio, twice. First was Aksyon Radyo Iloilo hosted by Aksyon Junjun Jr. Then Aksyon Radyo Bacolod hosted by Art Tayhopon. Topic was "Collateral damages of the lockdown in Iloilo-Bacolod", purely in Ilongo language. They wanted to know some economic numbers re impact in the region (Region 6, Western Visayas) and what can be done. Sharing here some numbers and my arguments. 1. Economic impact of lockdown, national: * GDP contraction 2020 of -9.6% was the worst PH record since post-WW2, worst in East Asia, 4th worst in the world's top 50 largest economies. * Same virus that started in China, present in the PH, Malaysia, Vietnam, Germany, France, USA, etc yet has severe impact in the PH. It's not the virus per se but response to the virus, lockdown policies, that differentiated the PH from many other countries. * GDP levels (constant 2018 prices): 2017 P17.18 Trillion 2018 P18.26 T 2019 P19.38 T 2020 P17.53 T. (source: PH Statistic

Dr. Marivic Villa, a Filipina physician based in Florida is a pulmonary and critical care doctor in the largest senior citizen community in Florida, if not the US. Last week, around July 24, she posted a comment at  Dr. Edsel Salvana's fb wall when the latter attacked again Ivermectin as early treatment vs Covid. Dr Salvana is known for intolerance to people and ideas who don't agree with his narratives, also his sponsored products like Remdesivir and vaccines. Either he deletes contrary substantial comments, or he outrightly blocks the commenter. Last week, he blocked Doc Marivic.  This is Dr. Salvana's fb post as shared by a friend, https://www.facebook.com/1699193450/posts/10209024897335158/?d=n I cannot access that post because he also blocked me last October, weird because we don't personally know each other, never exchanged or debated before even once, and I did not criticize or attack him, I just posted an article that questioned Remdesivir, in his fb post where

 * My column in  BusinessWorld  last July 20. Among the perplexing trends recently in the fight against COVID-19 is that as countries’ vaccination rates (at least one dose given) increase, the number of COVID-19 cases also increase. I checked the data from Worldometers, here are some countries with rising COVID cases until around July 17: 1.) Slight uptick — the US, Austria, France, Italy, Turkey, Israel, Lebanon; 2.) Medium uptick — Iran, Mexico, Colombia, Japan, Pakistan, South Africa, Portugal, Greece, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Panama, Kuwait; 3.) High uptick — South Africa, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia. But these countries in Figure 1 really have steep increases in cases — the UK, Spain, Netherlands, Cyprus — and they have high vaccination rates of at least 56% of their total population. Also six ASEAN countries. Vaccination rates, as of July 17: Netherlands 67.7%, Cambodia 34.5%, South Korea 31.5%, Malaysia 29.6%, Kazakhstan 25.8%, Russia 21.8%, Thailand 15.4%, Indonesia 15.1%,

 Retired faculty member of UP College of Medicine Dr Romeo "Romy" Quijano wrote a 3-parts papers about the vaccine. Reposting portions of them here.   (1) Herd Immunity and Vaccines (FAQ Part 1)  Romeo F. Quijano MD  June 21, 2021  https://romeoquijanomd.net/2021/06/21/herd-immunity-and-vaccines-faq/   … The goal of achieving “herd immunity” through vaccination is practically unattainable mainly because it relies on numerous flawed assumptions such as: homogenous, well-mixing population that is behaving basically in a similar manner, random vaccination with almost perfect efficacy, and uniformity in the population. In reality, many different factors shape patterns of risk and susceptibility to disease, including, among others, age and sex, ethnicity and life circumstances, including stress, lifestyle and naturally resilient immune system. Other problems that make “herd immunity” an unachievable goal through vaccination include: secondary vaccine failure (waning vaccine induce

July 11, 2021 More stories on vaccine injuries. (1) 12,184 DEAD 1,196,190 Injuries: European Database of Adverse Drug Reactions for COVID-19 “Vaccines”  by Brian Shilhavy  Editor, Health Impact News   May 25, 2021  https://vaccineimpact.com/2021/12184-dead-1196190-injuries-european-database-of-adverse-drug-reactions-for-covid-19-vaccines/ Their report through May 22, 2021 lists 12,184 deaths and 1,196,190 injuries following injections of four experimental COVID-19 shots: COVID-19 MRNA VACCINE MODERNA (CX-024414) COVID-19 MRNA VACCINE PFIZER-BIONTECH COVID-19 VACCINE ASTRAZENECA (CHADOX1 NCOV-19) COVID-19 VACCINE JANSSEN (AD26.COV2.S) Total reactions for the experimental mRNA vaccineTozinameran (code BNT162b2,Comirnaty) from BioNTech/ Pfizer: 5,961 deaths and 452,779 injuries to 22/05/2021 Total reactions for the experimental mRNA vaccine mRNA-1273(CX-024414) from Moderna: 3,365 deaths and 72,596 injuries to 22/05/2021 Total reactions for the experimental vaccine AZD1222/VAXZEVRIA (CHAD

 * My column in  BusinessWorld  last June 22.  As we are approaching 16 months of indefinite lockdown in many countries, what have we learned and not learned (and thus keep repeating the same wrong policies)? I constructed a table using data from different official sources to come up with the discussions. The sources are: 1.) For GDP growth/contraction, the IMF World Economic Outlook 2021 database ( https://www.imf.org/en/publications/weo ) for 2020 and Trading Economics ( https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/gdp-annual-growth-rate ) for Q1 2021. 2.) For mobility restrictions, I downloaded the long Excel sheets per country from the Google COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports (GCCMR,  https://www.google.com/covid19/mobility/ ), with changes from the baseline period Jan. 3 to Feb. 6, 2020. The GCCMR covers six areas, but for brevity I chose two, Retail and Recreation (R&R, restaurants, cafes, malls, museums, cinemas) and Transit stations (TS, subway/MRT stations, seaports, taxi s

June 24, 2021 Cebu Governor Gwen Garcia is a very vocal and frank lady on the lockdown issue. Her province has suffered a lot, like many other provinces and cities, and she does not want to prolong the economic agony, so she started relaxing the rules, like no swab test required for Cebu-bound domestic plane passengers, relaxation of face masks, face shields. Heavy bureaucracy IATF does not like this, so they started pressuring the Governor. The Concerned Doctors and Citizens of the Philippines (CDC PH) issued a statement the other day supporting Gov. Gwen. https://cdcph.org/f/cdc-ph-supports-gov-gwen-on-her-covid19-safety-measures This would have been good news: Breaking News! Duque Allows Use of Ivermectin by Doctors  Nicanor Perlas  June 22, 2021  https://covidcalltohumanity.org/2021/06/22/nicanor-perlas-breaking-news-duque-allows-use-of-ivermectin-by-doctors/   Doctors can now prescribe Ivermectin. Secretary of Health, Dr. Francisco Duque III, said he had “no problem with doctors w

June 17, 2021   How much really is the PH government budget for vaccination? This is from DOF Sec. Sonny Dominguez in a pre-SONA briefing, September 24, 2021. And from a DOH document. ‘P25 billion additional vaccine budget too much’ Paolo Romero - June 9, 2021 - 12:00am https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2021/06/09/2104124/p25-billion-additional-vaccine-budget-too-much Budget Secretary Wendell Avisado earlier said the government needs an additional P25 billion on top of the P82.5 billion allocated for vaccine procurement under the Bayanihan to Recover As One Act or Bayanihan 2. “Based on the arithmetic I did, the P107.5 billion is way too much for buying the vaccines needed to achieve herd immunity – unless they know something we don’t. But the bottom line is, it is not their money, it’s the public’s. I can only hope the excess amount will not go to corruption,” Sen. Panfilo Lacson said. ‘No sticky fingers’ in vaccine purchase – senators  Paolo Romero - June 17, 2021 - 12:00am https://

 * My column in  BusinessWorld  last June 8, 2021. (CDC PH participation in the June 12 event did not push through, the group is apolitical and just wanted to lift the lockdown, have focused protection of the vulnerables and frontliners, while the other groups were pushing a very political agenda like "revolutionary government.") This is a follow up to this column’s earlier piece on vaccination rates,  https://www.bworldonline.com/vaccination-rates-and-lockdown/ , which came out on May 1. I have expanded the number of countries included and updated the vaccination rates (at least one dose was given) up to June 5. Many countries though submit their reports late. Most countries in the world follow a general trend of declining COVID-19 cases and deaths as vaccination rates increase. This is not a direct causality as there are many factors to consider including natural herd immunity, the use of repurposed drugs like Ivermectin, better hygiene, etc. Then there are many countries t