News Roundup 23 November 2021
Nov 23, 2021 • 4 min Read
Villegas denounces vote buying | Manila Bulletin – Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas has denounced vote buying even calling it a “mark of the devil.” “Vote buying is a mark of the devil. It puts a price on the person of the voter. It is even worse when the vote buyer puts a price on their votes and tempts the poor,” he said in a CBCP News post. Villegas made the statement as he lamented vote buying has already started in the guise of giving “ayuda” (assistance). “This is not early assistance. This is early corruption. They are working hard to bait poor people. It has begun,” he said. “During elections, the poor are like fishes looking for food. But instead of feeding them, the politicians put out bait as vote buyers,” Villegas said. “They fed the poor, but they also hooked them.” The prelate said vote buying destroys the heart of democracy and the people who make up the nation. “When a fish is made boneless, it cannot grow anymore. It flails. Democracy flails if we don’t destroy vote buying,” Villegas said.
COVID-19 treatment pill molnupiravir available to OVP teleconsult patients | PHILSTAR.COM – Vice President Leni Robredo’s office is making molnupiravir, a pill for the treatment of COVID-19, available to patients under its teleconsultation program through an agreement inked with QualiMed Health Network. Under the memorandum of agreement signed Monday, the Office of the Vice President will issue a guarantee letter under its special medical assistance program to a patient referred by a volunteer doctor under its Bayanihan E-Konsulta and is further assessed and prescribed molnupiravir by QualiMed facilities. “We are truly humbled and grateful to the QualiMed Health Network for trusting us with this partnership, helping us extend our reach in delivering aid to more of our kababayans in need,” Robredo said in a Facebook post. Molnupiravir is an investigational oral antiviral drug developed by Merck & Co. and Ridgeback Therapeutics, which can cut the risk of hospitalization among people with mild to moderate COVID-19 by 50%, according to interim phase III clinical trials. Currently, the drug is only available to patients through hospitals which have received compassionate special permits from the Food and Drug Administration as the regulator has not yet cleared it for emergency use. The OVP said among the hospitals which have received CSPs are QualiMed facilities like QualiMed San Jose Del Monte in Bulacan and QualiMed Manila within the Philippine General Hospital compound. Robredo and her office have been actively addressing the COVID-19 pandemic through various programs, which have been widely praised.
DOH reports higher COVID cases despite fewer tests | INQUIRER.NET –The Department of Health (DOH) reported 1,153 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, higher than the 984 cases on Monday despite fewer coronavirus tests. According to DOH’s latest case bulletin, 2.3 percent out of 25,562 individuals who got tested on Sunday were found positive for the virus. However, this number of tests was lower than the 35,901 tests conducted on Saturday and announced on Monday when only 984 new cases were reported. The 25,562 tests on Sunday were the lowest since July 11 when only 29,375 were conducted. Two testing laboratories were not operational on Sunday, while eight laboratories were not able to submit their data on time. The 10 labs contributed an average of two percent of samples tested and 2.2 percent of positive individuals. According to DOH, the current case trend of COVID-19 in the country is currently plateauing. Meanwhile, the health agency also reported that the new infections brought the total confirmed cases of the viral disease to 2,827,820. The health agency likewise logged 2,182 new recoveries and 195 deaths on Tuesday. With these additional figures, there are now 2,761,617 patients who have recovered and 47,482 who have died. Of the 18,721 active cases, 55.2 percent remain mild, 4.7 percent are asymptomatic, 20.51 percent moderate, 13.8 percent are severe, and 5.8 percent are critical. On hospitalization, 32 percent of intensive care unit beds, 28 percent of isolation beds, 17 percent of ward beds, and 18 percent of ventilators are currently being used.
94% of COVID-19 deaths in hospitals not fully-vaccinated – DOH data | Manila Bulletin – Vaccination remains to be the key component in continually reducing deaths due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the Department of Health (DOH) emphasized. In a media briefing on Tuesday, Nov. 23, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire stated that according to the submitted data reports in the DOH data collect app with a 55 percent report submission rate there was a total of 216,074 COVID-19 cases seen or admitted in the health facilities from March 1 to Nov. 14 2021. Vergeire explained that patient status in the data collect reflects the most severe COVID-19 classification during the course of their admission and the vaccination status as of the time of their admission. “Of this total, 86 percent are not fully vaccinated. Meanwhile, about 94 percent are not fully vaccinated among those who died of COVID 19 as presented in these red icons,” she pointed out during her presentation. Vergeire said that analysis on this hospital data showed that deaths and serious outcomes are more likely to happen among unvaccinated patient and that severe and critical cases were 1.75 times more likely to occur among the unvaccinated compared to those fully vaccinated. Also, death was 2.6 times more likely to occur among unvaccinated than those fully vaccinated individuals.
