Just before the coronavirus disease 2019 reached the Philippines, we were in a much better place than we had been for a while, then the situation rapidly changed and it was all the people could talk about.
Now, who would have thought that among those who have to get contracted with a disease and fallen, still, many of us were blessed to reach this year and able to witness being left changed by the lockdown.
Yet looking back, it was 365 days ago when the Philippines had first to announce the first local transmission in the country. From being a nameless disease to being the most critical mess, here’s what happened:
Let’s backtrack:
March 2020
On the 1st week of March, the Department of Health (DOH) reported the first local transmission of the virus. People were getting panic buying and hoarding some of the essential sanitary hygiene. It was on March 11, the DOH confirmed the first death of the Filipino national to die of Covid-19. On the following day, the cases rose to 52 and at the end of the month, cases had blown out to more than 2,000 positives.
Right away, the entire Metro Manila was placed under ‘community quarantine’, so domestic flights and sea travels were put on hold. Then, uniformed personnel were starting to tighten quarantine protocols and started to put barrels on the road, malls and other small to medium enterprises were closing earlier than 6 pm.
On the 17th, the President put the entire country into lockdown to allow the local government units (LGUs) easily respond to various emergency calls. While most people were still internalizing the situation, the President signed the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act on the 25th to aid the 18 million low-wage-earner Filipinos to help them at least have access to their daily needs.
April 2020
In the first week of April, the government-mandated the wearing of face masks in public areas and public transportation. It was also this month when international physicians and scientists were dashing to search for a cure. Over 600 Filipino overseas workers and 250 health workers were getting infected by the Covid-19. Also, the overcrowded Bilibid detainees caught the virus and have been infecting inmates in the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor). Valenzuela City has started their first ‘mass testing’ for their health workers and returning OFWs.
May 2020
On May 12, big cities and provinces were placed under the modified enhanced community quarantine, this decision from the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infection Diseases for ‘high-risk’ communities such as Cebu and Metro Manila. On a snap, people can go out only to buy food and other emergency needs, other than that, people just stay at home.
On the 28th, the Philippines marked the highest increase of the cases, logging it to 15,588 since the virus traverses the country. And during the past three months, the lockdown has resulted in massive involuntary hunger –the highest hunger rate of 16.7 percent or 3.9 million families suffered.
June 2020
The moment we thought everything else would go back to normal but it worked the other way around. On the 16th, authorities have even further extended the community quarantine of the entire Philippines. The word, social distancing, disinfectants, face shield, and face mask have become the daily word to ponder.
It was also this month when the usual transportation comes to be very limited and many reported that commuters doubled their struggle as they have left stranded or not enough vehicles to ride. The government has released over Php 355 billion of the budget for all the possible needs of the citizens. The budget was distributed among the DSWD, DOH, and UP-PGH.
July 2020
In the meantime, the Department of Education decided to move the school opening in August due to the fluctuating and an uncontrollable number of Covid-19 infected cases in the country. On the 24th, the members of IATF have approved to join the Gavi Covid-19 Vaccine Global Access of COVAX facility, for the government to have an access to new endorsed vaccines, hoping that this would ease the weight people carry every day.
August 2020
On August 6th, the reported cases of Covid-19 climbed to 119,460 and the majority of the cases were from NCR, Laguna, Cebu, and Rizal. On the same date, the DOH disclosed that there are already 100 licensed Covid-19 testing laboratories in the Philippines.
September 2020
From the 8th to 20th of September, the Philippines Covid-19 cases were shockingly streaked for more than 3,000 cases daily for the 13th consecutive days that accumulated to almost 300,000 overall cases just this month. On the 18th, the President extended the state of calamity period until September 2021 and signed the second wave of the Bayanihan Act.
October 2020
Despite the effort of the government to control the spread of the Covid-19, there were about 500,000 quarantines and curfew violators were recorded as of this month. Also, the government barred again the locally stranded individuals from returning to their places following a spike in confirmed cases. Laboratories, quarantine facilities, disinfectants, and decongestion have sought much special attention to fix by the government.
It was also in October when two of the most popular PH destinations reopened their boundaries for tourists namely; Boracay and Baguio. The DepEd also had opened the academic year 2020-2021 through blended or distant learning for 47,000 public schools nationwide after it rejected the idea to move on with the academic freeze. The thing was the reaction and the experience of many people was divided during this time.
November 2020
While the vaccine roll-out is underway, the Philippines has faced twofold tragedy with the onslaught of the two strong typhoons, not to mention the increasing number of coronavirus cases in the country. However, China had to temporarily hold the entry of Filipinos into the country due to the high number of cases in the Philippines.
December 2020
It had started on the 24th that the government needed to suspend all the flights from the U.K. because it was believed that the new mutation of the Covid-19 variant was developed in the U.K. and is said to be more detrimental than the original one.
On the 29th, the government banned the entry of residents coming from 19 countries containing the new disease to prevent further transmission. The Philippines had closed 2020 with over 470,000 Covid-19 active cases, 439,796 recoveries, and almost 9,300 deaths. It is said to have lower cases at the end of the year due to only a few people who underwent the Covid-19 test.
January 2021
The Department of Tourism on the 1st day of the year had supported Coron, Palawan to reopen its borders but still needed to follow the test-before-travel policy. On the 6th of January, Hong Kong blasted the news that there was a passenger who got detected with the new Covid-19 strain who returned on December 22 from the Philippines.
The government on the counterpart had already secured vaccines from COVAX, Sinovac, and AstraZeneca and other private and government officials were continuing negotiating with the dealers of Pfizer, Gamaleya, and Moderna.
On the 12th, the Philippine Red Cross launched the new saliva testing kit to be cheaper and much easier to use and detect the virus.
In the second week of January, the contagious new Covid-19 variant from the U.K. has been detected in the country. The carrier was a 29-year-old male, who left Dubai and returned to the Philippines already with the B117 variant.
On the 27th, the U.K. Covid-19 variants had infected 17 patients in various places in the Philippines. On the same day, the government disclosed that the country will receive over a million vaccine doses in the first quarter of February.
As of January, there is already a breach of half a million who get infected with the virus.
February 2021
On the 28th, the Philippines received the first batch of Sinovac vaccine that is 600,000 doses donated by China. The country will receive another 25 million doses in batches before the year ends. The 525,600 doses of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca from Britain is expected to arrive in the country. The Philippines is said to be the last recipient of the initial vaccine roll-out in Southeast Asia.
March 2021
During the consecutive roll-outs of the vaccines, the government’s campaign has been strengthened to convince many people to get vaccinated as soon as it will begin distributing the areas.
On the first day of March, a physician was the first to get vaccinated in Sinovac. However, the day after the first vaccination, another Covid-19 variant that originated from South Africa had recently infected six individuals and now raising concern among experts because the current variant is more contagious and less likely to be mended by the current vaccine.
On the 4th, more than 480,000 AstraZeneca vaccines arrived in the country. From highest officials down to barangay officials are getting ready to transport the vaccines to its respected areas to begin the massive vaccinations.
On March 7, PGH recorded 1,773 individuals had received the vaccine. Also, the Philippines are expected to receive 30 million doses of the Novavax vaccine by July 2021.
To date, the Philippines ranked as the second-highest number of positive Covid-19 cases with 459,789 next to Indonesia in Southeast Asia.
Source: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/wpro—documents/countries/philippines/emergencies/covid-19/who-phl-sitrep-1-covid-19-9mar2020.pdf?sfvrsn=2553985a_2, https://doh.gov.ph/doh-press-release/DOH-REPORTS-1-COVID-DEATH-AND-3-NEW-CASES, https://www.who.int/philippines/emergencies/covid-19-response-in-the-philippines/situation-reports, https://doh.gov.ph/doh-press%20release/PHILIPPINES-NOW-HAS-100-LICENSED-TESTING-LABS-%E2%80%93-DOH
