It must be very hard for President Duterte to find himself having to make a decision on an issue where the slightest miscalculation could lead to catastrophic consequences, and with no one to blame. Like autocrats whose experience at ruling has mostly been carved in premodern settings, Mr. Duterte trusts too much in his own instincts. He has shown little patience for the kind of systematic thinking and rational decision-making that underpins modern statecraft.
In a rare admission of fallibility, he said in his latest public appearance that he has turned to prayer for some guidance on what to do. I suspect that, deep down, Mr. Duterte is terrorized by the thought of being remembered as the president who failed to protect his people from the ravages of a vicious disease.
Newly-reinstated presidential spokesperson Harry Roque earnestly opened the briefing with a summary of the decision, which extended the existing enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in the National Capital Region and much of Luzon to May 15, and modified it into a general community quarantine (GCQ) in areas that have posted significant declines in the number of new coronavirus infections.
That would have made for a concise and straightforward presentation. But the President could not control his need to say something after every report by a member of the Inter-Agency Task Force. He saw every pause as an opportunity to launch another rambling and repetitive monologue on a pet issue, sometimes to the point of losing his breath in the middle of unrestrained cursing and threats to declare his “own” brand of martial law. These interruptions are the main reason for the general incoherence of these briefings.
If he is supposed to be the representative of the expert community during this crisis, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III has been nothing but a pathetic presence. His fawning behavior before the President is without parallel. Nothing in what he says mirrors the independent viewpoint of science or of one with any functional expertise.
On a previous occasion, in what seemed like an after-the-fact nod to science, UP professor Mahar Lagmay was called to the podium to share the findings from the modelling studies that his team from the university had been conducting. This took place after the main briefing led by the President had ended.
I don’t quite understand how these things are arranged. But I’m sure Dr. Lagmay would have gladly yielded the microphone to an epidemiologist or a public health specialist, if there was one in the room. He is, after all, an earth scientist, and, in the mass media, he is better known as an expert on geological hazards.
Be that as it may, the projections of his group, like those of another research team from the UP scientific community, carried a caveat. These projections are premised on the presumed accuracy of the Department of Health’s daily reports of the number of confirmed infections and number of deaths from COVID-19.
Here, precisely, is where the crux of the problem lies. These numbers are highly dependent on many factors, not the least of which are: (1) the readiness of people to report their symptoms to the health authorities, and (2) the availability of the tests to those who require them. Since testing for the virus has been largely confined to symptomatic persons with a history of travel to infection hotspots or of contact with known cases, the likelihood that the actual number of infections is grossly understated cannot be ignored. If testing were made available to people with mild or moderate symptoms, or to those who have had contact but show no symptoms, the scale of the infection could be much worse than the current figures indicate.
The numbers for COVID-19 deaths, at first glance, may seem unproblematic. But that is assuming that a proper diagnosis of death from COVID-19 is made and is duly reported to the DOH in every instance, no matter where it happens. I understand that the DOH subjects these reports to a validation process. Where neither a test nor a clinical diagnosis nor an autopsy is performed, it would not be easy to arrive at a clear determination of the cause of death. This leaves plenty of room for error in the number of case fatalities ascribed to COVID-19.
Some say that, ideally, at least a third of the population should be tested in order to arrive at a confident measure of the extent of the outbreak. That would be about 35 million in our case—a figure that we cannot begin to contemplate given the government’s modest target of 8,000-10,000 tests per day.
Given the inherent complexity of gauging the real magnitude of the outbreak and the course it takes over a period, responsive governments have premised the loosening of quarantine measures on attaining certain targets other than the flattening of the curve that everyone talks about.
One such plan comes from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a neoconservative think-tank that has a strong interest in the eventual reopening of the US economy. Interestingly, the AEI regards the current insistence on physical distancing as the chief barrier to a renormalization of economic activity. To lift this barrier, it argues, it would be necessary to put in place a better public health surveillance system for early outbreak identification and containment, and adequate treatment facilities. Without a vaccine, there is simply no way of returning to the world we knew.
This is a very modest roadmap as it is. We expect nothing less from a government that is supposed to base its decisions on more than one person’s instincts.
Part 2 — Economic recovery and the second wave
CENTRAL to a global economic recovery are two predicates: the taming of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) as a “sine qua non” and a seamless measured lifting of the quarantine to restart local economic activities. But the world cannot wait 18 months. Much is unknown about its virulence when quarantine is lifted. It could trigger another wave of contagion. Yet, the world must understand we may have to live with the contagion or its mutant form among us for the foreseeable future.
Government and private revenues are drying up dangerously. Unemployment has shot through the roof and food subsidies are finite. The advanced economies have built-in safety nets, while the impoverished countries, like the Philippines, have their masses coping. They eat when they find work. We need to comprehend, too, that Covid- 19 has ravaged a relatively small percentage of a country’s population, but hysteria, ignorance and panic have blown this out of proportion. It is not a zero-sum game between “saving lives to save the economy or saving the economy to save lives.” The trade-off between the need for jobs and avoidance of contagion to save the economy must be calibrated with precision toward the decision to reopen the economy. (Refer to Nick Perlas’ letter to President Duterte on the Philippine Daily Inquirer.)
Singapore — second wave
Take Singapore, with its reputation as the best governed prosperous city-state; it acted quickly and decisively. By instituting quarantines and employing massive testing, isolating the positives and tracing the infected, and of everyone flying into its Changi airport, the virus was contained. Covid-19 positives were enrolled into its excellent healthcare system, freeing them once they tested negative. Singapore learned its lessons well from the outbreak of the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic. What they did became the gold standard for the virus containment and mitigation. Then the second wave rolled in.
The spike in cases hit Singapore harder this time around. Several reasons could be attributed for this surge, but the overarching cause was that this First World country acted as a Third World country with respect to its foreign migrant workers. “Singapore’s vast migrant worker population, in particular those workers — most from South Asia — living in cramped dormitories, who appear to have been overlooked in the initial wave of testing. What is evident is that the conditions that workers live in made effective social distancing — or ‘home’ quarantine — next to impossible, making it easy for the virus to spread,” (James Griffiths, CNN, April 19, 2020.)
For the well-to-do Singaporeans, the initial reaction as explained by Dale Fisher, infection control chairman at the National University Hospital, was that, “In Singapore, we want life to go on as normal… We want businesses, churches, restaurants and schools to stay open. This is what success looks like. Everything goes forward with modifications as needed and you keep doing this until there’s a vaccine or a treatment.” Its relaxed attitude may have done Singapore in. Or maybe hubris did.
The US
America’s case is different. Unlike Singapore, it is a country gazillion times bigger, endowed with vast resources, but saddled with a complicated political system, presided over by a leader that pales in comparison to Lee Kwan Yew’s progeny, Lee Hsien Loong. United tates President Donald Trump mandated a phased-in reopening of the economy leaving final decision to state governors under a set of his own criteria. The next day he promptly subverted the same — calling his base to “liberate the states from lockdowns.” Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia are key targets needed to propel him to a second term in November. This is seducing fate for a possible second wave of contagion as the exigencies of politics he made supreme over people’s lives.
PH experience
In our country, meanwhile, President Rodrigo Duterte, or the Deegong, has been chillingly deliberate in explaining to the citizens that the P270-billion outlay is only enough for two months. When the subsidy and the money runs out, this simmering social volcano could erupt — resulting in chaos, disruption and death that is more widespread than that inflicted by any contagion.
Government needs to divert its scarce resources from food subsidy toward getting the work force productive safely and quickly. Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez 3rd, ascendant over the economic team with the resignation of former Socioeconomic Planning secretary Ernesto Pernia, needs to identify which critical economic activities are immediately viable for restart and in what sequence of urgency, preferably those not dependent solely on foreign supply chains.
The service-producing industries, in which a large segment of our wage earners are engaged in, are obviously the priority
An imaginative public transport system to and from the sites could be introduced — or for that matter, workers could be housed in temporary dormitories near their workplaces. And a curfew could be imposed to monitor eateries, restaurants and entertainment places, and maintain order in the streets.
Corruption
Which brings us to an egregious systemic anomaly. Deeply embedded in our political culture, the traditional values perverting governance surfaces. Even in times of misfortune, rent seekers and market opportunists abound. Millions from the Super Typhoon “Yolanda” (“Haiyan”) calamity funds have never been accounted for and foreign goods donated were found rotting in warehouses because of logistical glitches; and then this despicable practice of substituting politicians’ labels on donors goods, widely known locally as “epal.”
The undisciplined hordes, the pasaway roaming the streets during lockdowns need to be tamed with creative alternative livelihood, keeping them productive. The Deegong who has just extended quarantine for major cities to May 15 has initiated a Balik Probinsya program to decongest the slums of the cities. But, again, as in any palliative, instant solutions to generations-long festering problem are bound to fail. The pasaway will just earn a much-needed vacation back to their provinces. When the crisis abates, they will be back in their hovels. Meantime, when the masses are hungry and angry, looting and crime are their desperate expressions; forcing the state to exercise its monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. In a farcical display of political will but no longer instilling fear into an already callused citizenry, martial law has been hinted at.
Global initiatives
Meanwhile, local economic recovery will not be sustainable unless the global economy restarts. The cooperation of the biggest economies, principally China and the US, with substantial participation of other First World countries is imperative. First is to pool resources and technology and share information toward the production of the Covid- 19 vaccine or other cures. Second is to guarantee distribution priority to the countries that need these the most.
Despite Trump defunding the World Health Organization, this is still the most extensively wired worldwide institution that can allocate the needs of member countries efficiently. Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin will still be in charge of their respective countries. By November, an American lameduck president may be presiding over the US.
But before then, the world must work with urgency as one to save humanity no less. We all work together to save our specie, or we perish individually, just the same. And this is the new normal.
Part 1 Covid-19 and lockdowns
THE movie “I Am Legend” comes to mind as one of the alternative “end of times” scenarios. I quote its synopsis: “Years after a plague kills most of humanity and transforms the rest into monsters, the sole survivor in New York City struggles valiantly to find a cure in this post-apocalyptic action thriller.” Movies have a way of predicting the possible outcomes of a given hypothesis. What limits or unlocks the universe of possibilities is simply the imagination — either infertile or vivid — of the author or the screenwriter from which the movie is adapted.
Films are also reflections of man’s hopes and fears writ large with the audience vicariously involved, safe within the confines of dark cinemas or home theaters. But audiences demand that at the end, there must be a redeeming value or at the very least a deux ex machina that restores order — a universal karma that must overarch the lives of men.
What is eerie is that the current Covid-19 mimics the plot of the movie, giving credence to the “reality follows fiction” dictum. Only the finale has not yet been scripted. Will the world find a cure — a vaccine — in time to save humanity? Reality’s final intent has still to unfold.
Panacea
A vaccine to cure or immunize the population may be available in 18 months. Meantime, China, the world’s newly minted benefactor will have to work its factories double time to produce the much-needed medical supplies and equipment for the hospitals. And there is fear of a second deadly wave, as China’s labor force breaks quarantine. Prognosis for each country is imprecise. Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom are expected to “flatten their curves,” but not Italy or Spain. They will be decimated. When China or the United States makes the scarce vaccine available, Western Judeo-Christian countries or China’s allies may have priority. The impoverished countries in the fringes and in the Middle East be damned. And how do you think the Islamic world will react? The permutations are endless, but Darwin’s law of natural selection will kick in — which simply means, the fittest will survive; a logical complement to the hypothesis that results in a Malthusian catastrophe.” (“Covid-19 conspiracy theories,” The Manila Times, April 1, 2020.)
The slums of Asia and India, the favelas of Latin America, and the shanty towns of Africa may be written off. They are unable to quarantine themselves seriously as this is not the priority for the poor and the “dregs of society.” And social or physical distancing is alien not only to their culture but the realities of their lives. Multi-families live in shacks and hovels.
And the jobs and food situation for survival need to be included in the calculus. There will be practically a few of the former and not enough of the latter. Hunger will descend and, perhaps, starvation and famine not unlike the intermittent years that hit the Sahel region and sub-Saharan Africa in 1968 to 2016 or North Korea from 1994 to 1998. Admittedly this extremely grim scenario belongs more to the movie disaster genre. Reality most probably will fall along the alternative route.
Point of departure
Where are we today, four-and-a-half months after the first contagion and subsequent first death was reported? As we go to press, we have 2.2 million to 2.5 million cases, with 150,000 deaths and rising. That’s 0.002 percent of the world population of 7.7 billion — minuscule compared to an estimated 0.01 percent to 5.56 percent deaths in the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. Hysteria and terror are the handmaidens of fear. And we have been flagellated by an amalgam of facts, fiction and fake news underpinned by ignorance, precluding us from facing lucidly monsters we ourselves created. Although Covid-19 grew exponentially in four months, the protocols on quarantine, physical distancing and health practices have begun to “flatten the curve” in some countries. But America, remiss in its role as the world’s hegemon, is now the epicenter of Covid-19. But experts have reduced morbidity projections from a high 240,000 to 60,000. Still a tragic figure compared to 9/11’s 3,000 dead that triggered two American wars and untold misery. In other countries, Covid-19 is still raging, but country-to-country assessment differs — depending on how survival protocols are enforced.
World economy
I borrow heavily from Fareed Zakaria’s reportage, a journalist of global renown on the state of the world’s economy that we are just at the “early stages of what is going to become a series of cascading crises.” And we are not going back to anything resembling normal — a position that Adam Tooze, a British historian and an eminent academic agreed with. “The old economic and political playbooks don’t apply,” he declared. The healthcare crisis is only the first phase that brought the world’s leading economies on their knees. Long profligate, the world’s governments and their desire to uplift the lives first of their elite and the overclass, then their masses, perhaps as an afterthought, produced a wealth gap between the “haves and the have nots” that caused the government and private sectors to be mired in debt. Credit Suisse estimates that the world’s richest 1 percent now owns half the world’s wealth. This is the “old normal.” Do we want to revert to that? And the global gross domestic product is $90 trillion, adding $260 trillion in public and private debt.
Many of the leading countries were caught naively unprepared, including America. It has lost 17 million jobs and on track for 30-percent unemployment. The next phase will be the debt crunch, with leading countries defaulting on their loans precipitating a fiscal breakdown. Italy, the third largest European economy is toast; it can no longer rely on Germany, its ‘go-to’ banker to tide it over. Germany, the strongest European economy, is expected to contract by more than 5 percent to start with.
Middle East and oil countries
The price of oil, the lifeblood of the industrialized nations and its main source of energy, is on a free fall, its demand having collapsed, settling perhaps at $10 per barrel. Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries Will have lakes of unsold oil. Below $60 per barrel, oil becomes unprofitable, and government revenue will dry up, sinking the economies of Libya, Nigeria, Iran and Iraq. And this will lead to instability and political turmoil, and massive shift of immigrants and refugees inundating borders.
Endgame
The knee-jerk palliative of a lockdown to contain, then mitigate the contagion saved lives. But there is a trade-off on the country’s economic life, which will also impact negatively on people’s lives, prompting reversal. Of note is South Korea and China itself, where incidences of contagion have eventually abated and lockdowns have been lifted. US President Donald Trump, who irresponsibly refused to enforce lockdowns resulting in countless American lives lost, is now disingenuously shifting blame to state governors for his criminal incompetence. He backtracked on his earlier assertion that as president, he is in total control over the states. His insistence still on a three-phased reopening of the US economy before November smacks of brazen politicking, an eye toward sanitizing his reelection bid.
Next week: Part 2 Economic recovery