Albert Einstein once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

In a press conference today, the Coalition for People’s Right to Health (CPRH) critiqued the government’s self-rated “excellent response” in the pandemic over the past year.

Dr. Joshua San Pedro, physician and co-convenor of CPRH pointed out that the recent spike in case which surpasses 5,000 in a single day, is comparable to last year’s August data. “Last year, testing centers were fewer and results piled up for days before they were reported. This year, there are more testing centers and we can safely say the numbers are ‘fresh cases’.”

The recent positivity rate for COVID-19 cases in the Philippines is also alarmingly high at 12 percent, Dr. San Pedro observed. This notable difference from the World Health Organization’s recommendation of keeping an area’s positivity rate at below 5% for at least 2 weeks before easing restrictions shows a grotesque figure of the country’s “uncontrolled cases as a result of anything but excellent response”, said Dr. San Pedro. “We are almost back to where we were last year,” he added.

“The shooting numbers of daily positive cases is not the second wave as we have not gotten off from the first wave and the curve was never flattened since the pandemic began. What we are seeing is the surge upon surge of cases,” he clarified.

For the past year, the heavier burden of responsibility and compliance to control the spread of the virus tilted to the vast majority where violators from lower socio-economic status were treated punitively. For the government’s part, the public health system remained weak and on its knees. Hospitals are once again beyond their capacities, contact tracing capacity is still 1:7 national average — far behind the national target of 1:37, 70 percent of testing laboratories can be found in only the top 10 provinces while 35 provinces still remain without testing centers. Lastly, health protocols generously but dangerously bend for the rich and powerful. “The people deserve leaders with moral authority. Those who do not shift the burden of pandemic control to individual citizens but assume state responsibility for a stronger health system and competent pandemic management,” added Dr. San Pedro.

Meanwhile, the people have suffered immeasurably in the past year with massive unemployment, out of pocket expenses for health (additionally for testing and treatment), and rising inflation and cost of basic goods. Despite a ballooning national debt in the name of COVID-19 response, there was minimal financial support to the economically displaced – no employment assurance, no quarantine and leave benefits, and lack of financial aid or “ayuda”.

For CPRH, the overall Philippine COVID-19 response is a failure after one year of lockdown. “At the end of the day, our government’s refusal to strengthen our public health care system at the core has resulted and will continue to result in failure after failure in the pandemic response. Vaccines are important. But vaccines alone cannot contain the spread of disease without strong public health measures,” the co-convenor stressed.

“Ang pagpapaubaya sa mamamayan sa pandemya ay naglugmok sa atin sa mas malalim at malawak na krisis pang-ekonomya at pangkalusugan isang taon mula noong unang ideklara ang lockdown,” Dr. San Pedro concluded. ##