We need evidence-based policies and approaches, and fewer generals
Our mobility restriction under ECQ and now back to MECQ is but a short-term intervention to prevent the surge of COVID-19. But the government appears to have no new strategies and efforts to fix or contain the pandemic, so our nation continues to suffer in medical care and the economy.
Our leaders said the lockdown might slow down the spread of the virus, but the high number of positive cases and deaths daily does not lie.
What we need are evidence-based policies and commonsensical approaches, like allowing outdoor activities and exposure to morning sunlight, and providing breathing space especially for the elderly and the poor in cramped houses. Sadly, as one Inquirer columnist observed, Filipinos have strategies for family survival but none for national survival.
Our national leadership should heed the suggestion to man the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases with more doctors than generals. As Jean Kerr wrote in “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies”: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it’s just possible you have not grasped the situation.”
DIOSDADO V. CALONGE
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