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CNN Philippines (CNN Philippines, September 23) The Lancet medical journal ranked the Philippines 66th out of 91 countries in terms of suppressing the spread of COVID-19 in August, noting that President Rodrigo Duterte’s “medical populism” is partly to blame.
The ranking was based on the number of new coronavirus cases per million inhabitants per day, averaged over the 31 days of August, from countries with “sufficient data,” the Lancet COVID-19 Commission said in a report released Sept. 14. . that newly confirmed infections are “the simplest measure of the virus transmission rate.”
The Commission said a country could slow the spread of the virus in August if it only had five or fewer cases per million inhabitants per day, provided it carried out “at least 20 tests per new case”, which is considered “comprehensive.” tests.
He said 19 locations suppressed transmission of the coronavirus last month. These include Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Cambodia, China, Myanmar, Malaysia, New Zealand, Uganda, Togo, Pakistan, Latvia, and Luxembourg.
Meanwhile, there is a “low” transmission of COVID-19 in countries with 10 or fewer new cases per million inhabitants per day, according to The Lancet classification.
When the country reports 30 to 50 new cases per million per day, it has “moderate transmission.” The Philippines falls into this category, with 37.5 new infections per million per day during the month of August.
The country has “high transmission” when it registers 50 to 100 new cases per day, and “very high transmission” once it registers 100 or more infections per day.
Medical populism
The lack of implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as the use of masks, testing, contact tracing, which were successful in other countries, as well as high inequality and so-called medical populism, are some of the reasons why some countries failed to control COVID-19, the Commission noted.
Medical populism is defined as “simplifying the pandemic by minimizing its impacts or promoting easy solutions or treatments, spectacularizing its responses to the crisis, forging divisions between dangerous’ people ‘and dangerous’ others, and making medical knowledge claims to back it up.” previous”.
The Commission pointed out that this political style, observed in the President of the United States, Donald Trump, President Rodrigo Duterte, and the President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, prevents the implementation of security measures and “generates disinformation and rumors.”
The Lancet then asked governments to prioritize councils from the public health community, which work alongside international agencies, and learn from best practices from other nations.
He also called on world leaders “to desist from expressing personal views that disagree with their nations’ scientific and public health experts” as he warned against politicians “who are calling for unproven treatments that have no data and supporting evidence, thus politicizing the drug and vaccine discovery process. “
To date, the Philippines has 291,789 COVID-19 cases. The death toll is 5,049, while the number of recoveries is 230,643.
Worldwide, there are more than 31 million cases of coronavirus, with more than 960,000 deaths and recoveries exceeding 21 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 tracker.
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