News Roundup 13 August 2020
Aug 13, 2020 • 4 min Read
Philippines sees 4,002 new COVID-19 cases; total now at 147,526 | PHILSTAR.COM – The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the Philippines rose to 147,526 Thursday after 4,002 new infections were added to the country’s caseload. Currently, there are 74,713 active cases or patients who are still infected with COVID-19. It is higher than the total recoveries which increased by 1,403 to 70,387. The department also reported 23 additional deaths related to COVID-19. This brought the total number of fatalities to 2,426.
Palace confident Philhealth chief Morales will sign bank secrecy waiver | PHILSTAR.COM – Malacañang is confident that Philippine Health Insurance Corp. president Ricardo Morales, who is under fire over the alleged anomalies in the state-run insurer, will allow investigators to scrutinize his bank account. Some PhilHealth officials expressed willingness to sign bank secrecy waivers during last Wednesday’s House hearing on the supposed corrupt and fraudulent activities that are costing the state insurer billions of pesos. The bank secrecy waiver will allow the Anti-Money Laundering Council to access records of the bank deposits and transactions made by the signatories. However, Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Barbers was not satisfied, saying Morales and other top officials of PhilHealth should also agree to do the same so investigators can determine the lapses in the system.
Assassination ‘akyat-bahay’ style | INQUIRER.NET – Cliché though it sounds, the killing of Randall Echanis was the kind that ran chills down one’s spine. It did not look like most killings of political figures recorded on police blotters. Terrified citizens have, by now, learned to use the words “riding in tandem” to describe hooded riders who finish off their targets with bullets — journalists, judges, politicians, even priests. The countless kills carried out by riding-in-tandem guns-for-hire have become commonplace, as in, so what’s new, except to the bereaved who are shocked beyond belief. The way Echanis was killed baffles. It was not the kind that happens in dimly lit alleys or in street corners with karaoke joints where Sinatra wannabes are stabbed to death over a note gone awry. The killing of Echanis, a peace negotiator of the National Democratic Front, the umbrella group to which the armed New People’s Army and the Communist Party of the Philippines belong, is something out of the box. “A new modus,” a “new format,” said those who have yet to find words for it.
‘Stop rapid test’: PGH shares ‘effective’ measures to prevent COVID-19 spread | Manila Bulletin – The fight against the COVID-19 pandemic is a battle that can be won through science-based implementations, the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) said. Of its 4,871 personnel tested in June, only 99 or two percent turned out positive for COVID-19 despite high risks of contracting the virus, according to a paper published by PGH on Wednesday (Aug. 11). The hospital-turned COVID-19 center said what helped to reduce the infection rate among the PGH community were measures “calculated with precision and evaluated objectively.” Rapid Antibody Tests (RATs) didn’t prove to be beneficial in PGH’s operation because of its inaccurate results. The institution said that the sensitivity of RAT is only 20 percent. “The level of sensitivity at 20 percent is too low to be of any value. The number of potential missed cases of 80 percent is too dangerously high to even consider RAT as a screening too,” the PGH said. It echoed the call of various medical groups and healthcare professionals to stop the use of rapid tests. “We ask LGUs (local government units) and workplaces not to use RAT to clear workers to work or not to work.”
Duterte to be injected with Russia’s Covid-19 vaccine by May 2021 — Palace | The Mania Times – President Rodrigo Duterte is expected to be injected with Russia’s vaccine against coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) by May of 2021, Malacañang said on Thursday, as the Philippines plans to launch its clinical trials in October. The 75-year-old Duterte, who volunteered to be among the first to be inoculated in public, might be immunized with the Russian vaccine by May 1, 2021 at the earliest, his spokesman Harry Roque Jr. said. “Ibig sabihin po sa Mayo a-uno 2021 pa lamang puwedeng magpasaksak ng bakuna galing sa Russia ang ating Pangulo (It means the President may only get vaccinated as early as May 1, 2021),” Roque said during a virtual press briefing.
