BWorld 482, Rising cases, vaccine and Ivermectin

* My column in BusinessWorld, April 6, 2021.

"Our FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and DoH (Department of Health) are very strict about recommendations and demand for clinical trials on Ivermectin, fine. But where are the clinical trials on the safety and efficacy studies on mandatory face shields? Why give special treatment to new vaccines that still have no long-term safety studies and only a single placebo randomized controlled trial per vaccine, a consideration not given to the 24-RCT supported efficacy, very affordable and safe Ivermectin?”

— Dr. Benigno “Iggy” Agbayani, Jr.,
President, CDC PH 

The Philippines has experienced a surge in COVID-19 cases starting March 12, with 4,000+ cases per day. The peak so far was 12,556 cases on April 3.

I checked some reports on countries that are using vaccines from China. Brazil, Chile and Turkey started inoculation in mid-January 2021 using Sinovac. Also Ukraine (Global Times, Jan. 12, 2021). Serbia and Hungary have also been using Sinovac since early March (LA Times, March 2, 2021). Countries that use the Sinopharm vaccine are Peru and Cambodia (Washington Post, Feb. 2, 2021), Pakistan (Al Jazeera, March 18, 2021), and Iraq (Reuters, March 2, 2021).

When I checked these countries’ recent COVID-19 cases, a pattern emerged — many countries that use Sinovac and/or Sinopharm have experienced a spike or surge in cases around mid-March to present (see Figure 1). Some countries that use Sinovac or Sinopharm did not experience this trend but they are a few, like Indonesia. Still, the pattern is troubling and governments should pause and not rush mass vaccination.

Recently, doctors affiliated with the Concerned Doctors and Citizens of the Philippines (CDC PH) have been resource persons in many fora and government public hearings.

On March 30, the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry Muntinlupa City chapter under the leadership of its president, Elvie Sanchez-Quiazon, organized a big forum, “How to end the pandemic: range of perspectives.” Speakers were Senator Bong Go, Congressperson Ruffy Biazon, and four physicians — health consultant Dr. Tony Leachon, CDC PH President Dr. Iggy Agbayani, Dr. Allan Landrito who is the author of the book Freedom from COVID-19 Now! Prevention and Cure at Hand, and Dr. Homer Lim, President of the International Anti-Aging and Integrative Medicine Society. The forum moderator was TV personality Luchi Cruz-Valdes, head of TV5 News and Information.

Dr. Leachon talked about the usual pillars to control a spike in infection — test, isolate, trace, quarantine; the usual barriers — lockdown, mandatory masks, face shields, frequent hand washing, etc. He did not offer prophylaxis except the vaccines that will be available to many people many months from now, nor early treatment using old and multi-decades proven drugs.

Dr. Agbayani talked about the safety of ivermectin (IVM), as river blindness and malarial studies demonstrated its safety. Then he discussed IVM efficacy — at least 24 published randomized control trials (RCTs), 36 observational control trials (OCTs), one published and four pre-print meta-analysis — all supporting or showing benefits of using IVM against COVID-19. But despite these, IVM is not readily available mainly due to politics like unusual strictness even in drug compounding.

Dr. Landrito talked about the important characteristics of IVM — it is anti-parasitic, anti-viral, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer; and the important properties of IVM — it inhibits the replication of many viruses, it reduces viral load and fights organ damage, it prevents transmission of COVID-19, it hastens recovery and decreases hospitalization and mortality.

Dr. Lim talked about early treatment protocols for the mildly symptomatic like hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) plus azithromycin or doxycycline, or IVM plus azithromycin or doxycycline. Plus high doses of vitamins C and D, zinc, quercetin, and virgin coconut oil. He also discussed the basic findings of IVM Meta (https://ivmmeta.com/).

The CDC PH doctors also attended the public hearings conducted by the Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA) led by Director General Jeremiah Belgica on the mornings of March 30 and 31. FDA Director Eric Domingo was there. Then the House of Representatives hearing, also on March 30, from afternoon till evening, Health Secretary Duque was there.

A recent paper, “Global trends in clinical studies of ivermectin in COVID-19” written by Dr. Morimasa Yagisawa, Dr. Patrick J. Foster, Dr. Hideaki Hanaki, and Dr. Satoshi Ōmura, was published by The Japanese Journal of Antibiotics in March.

An important summary of the studies reviewed is presented below. The p-values show significance of the studies. P values of less than 0.05 (≤ 0.05) are statistically significant, indicating strong evidence against the null hypothesis that there is no relationship between two variables being studied, that there is less than 5% probability the null is correct. Thus, the alternative hypothesis that the independent variable does affect the dependent variable, is correct. The results affirm that using IVM against COVID-19 does lead to a shorter hospital stay or no hospitalization, viral elimination is higher, mortality is lower, and symptoms are reduced (see Figure 2).

The indefinite lockdown policy is 13 months of failure in the Philippines yet it is still done. Government has never tried focused protection for the vulnerable and early treatment for symptomatic people at home. Sick people need to get so ill that they need hospitalization before treatment can be given. This is a dangerous government policy.
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See also:
BWorld 479, Lockdown déjà vu or back to normal, March 22, 2021 
BWorld 480, 10 trends in mortality and spending economics, March 29, 2021 
BWorld 481, Carbon tax is not good, April 02, 2021.

Covid 29, CDC PH on WHO, Salvana attack of IVM

The President of Concerned Doctors and Citizens of the Philippines (CDC PH), Dr. Benigno "Iggy" Agbayani Jr., issued a statement to question the recent attack by the WHO of Ivermectin (IVM).

Dr. Iggy also noted that 

Merck Inc. a big Pharmacology company also did not recommend Ivermectin for COVID-19 and promoted such announcement on mainstream and social media. This is a case of profit as its main goal for it stands to lose millions of dollars from its upcoming new anti-Covid tablet. Ivermectin’s patent has expired since 1996 and can be sold as cheap as fifteen pesos a tablet, something Merck’s new product cannot match.

I repost here some cool messages that were shared around.

Finally, on the sudden rise in daily cases of 4k+ per day since March 12, 2021 until today, Dr. Iggy somehow predicted the rise.

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See also:
Covid 26, CDC PH Statement on Ivermectin, March 20, 2021 
Covid 27, Dr. Rafael Castillo on vaccine, Ivermectin, and lifting the lockdown, March 24, 2021 
Covid 28, Drs. Villa and Landrito, Ms. Cuisia, on IVM and lockdown, April 01, 2021.

Weekend Fun 75, Lockdown, inflation, climate memes

Indefinite, endless lockdowns in the Philippines with occasional liquor ban in many cities and provinces, this man tried to hoard large number of alcohol bottles before the ban is imposed for weeks, hahaha.

Btway, all memes and photos here I got from different sources -- FB, Viber groups, web -- none I made.

About inflation that has been picking up this year, below is an example of "disguised inflation" -- the price (barbq, litson manok, etc.) remains the same but the amount or quantity or serving has declined. 

And to cope with rising prices, people need more  "Quartadin" :-)

Yesterday was April Fool's Day, this is a good tattoo remover :-) 

And climate... 

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See also:
Weekend Fun 72, Airline mergers, July 04, 2020 
Weekend Fun 73, Russia vaccine, ECQ, August 15, 2020 
Weekend Fun 74, CNN as the US' "Baghdad Bob", August 29, 2020.

BWorld 481, Carbon tax is not good

* My article in BusinessWorld, March 29, 2021.

Early this year, some sectors resumed their carbon tax-pushing agenda, proposing higher energy prices for many financially struggling companies and households while favoring intermittent renewable energy (RE) like solar-wind. These five reports in BusinessWorld capture this development:

1. “Carbon taxes could sap PHL competitiveness, Energy department says” (March 10).

2. “DoE to endorse 75 RE plants for feed-in tariff program” (March 13).

3. “Environment dep’t agrees PHL not ready for carbon tax” (March 15).

4. “Regulator says power distributors need to tap more renewable energy to meet 2040 target” (March 25).

5. “Diokno warns of risks associated with transition away from coal power” (March 27).

Good news in reports number 1, 3, and 5, the leadership of the Department of Energy (DoE) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources said that the Philippines is not ready for, that it is not advisable to impose, a carbon tax. And the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor warned about the “financial risks that may come with plans to move away from coal energy.” Thank you, Secretaries Alfonso Cusi and Roy Cimatu, and Governor Ben Diokno.

Reports number 2 and 4  were bad news, especially the one about adding 23 new solar projects and six new wind projects, on top of many big solar and wind projects that are already entitled to high feed-in tariff (FiT) or guaranteed prices for 20 years. Then there is the National Renewable Energy Program (NREP) plan to push hard the renewable portfolio standards (RPS) by raising the RE quota from 1% to at least 2.5% per year, so that they will reach the target RE share of 37.3% of the total power mix by 2030, and 55.8% by 2040.

Solar and wind have the highest FiT rates. Until 2020, solar FiT was P10.12 to P11.28/kwh, and wind FiT was P8.59 to P9.90/kwh. Compare that with the recent winners of Meralco’s competitive selection process (CSP): three coal and gas plants at only P4-5/kwh. And if a battery is added plus standby gensets running on diesel or bunker fuel, the cost of solar and wind can jump to the ceiling.

Among the carbon tax pushers is the World Bank (WB). In its recent report “Uneven Recovery” (April 2021), among the proposals are “Going green without hurting growth or the poor… Policy options include: (i) phasing out fossil fuel and energy subsidies, (ii) adjusting carbon prices…” Lousy proposals.

If we look at how many countries have industrialized and modernized, among the important reasons is that they have used cheap, stable, reliable, fossil fuel energy.

I computed the average electricity generation from 1985 (earliest comparative data available) to 2000, then from 2001-2019 of 20 countries and compared them with their average GDP growth over the same period. Power data came from the BP Statistical Review of World Energy (BP-SRWE) 2020 and the DoE, while the GDP data came from the IMF World Economic Outlook (WEO) database 2020.

With few exceptions, countries that have retained a high coal share to total power generation — at least 30% — have also experienced fast growth: China, India, South Korea, Turkey, Poland, and Taiwan. And countries that significantly raised their coal share in 2001-2019 compared with their share from 1985 to 2000 also experienced fast growth: Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines.

Countries that reduced their coal share in 2001-2019 experienced slower growth — the US, Canada, Australia, Germany, the UK, Italy, and Spain. Countries in Table 1 are ranked based on their total generation in 2001-2019.

Meanwhile, power supply and demand data in the Luzon and Visayas grids show that in the first quarter (Q1) 2021 there has been a contraction or flat growth, while prices — both the customer effective spot settlement price (ESSP) and load-weighted average price (LWAP) — show continued depressed levels. Data for Table 2 comes from the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippine.

Average demand in 2021 contracted -6.7% in January, -4.8% in February, and grew 1.5% in March.

With the imposition of a curfew then a stricter quarantine in late March, this modest growth may turn out to be another contraction.

Environmental protection can continue by directing attention at old industrial plants that pollute, but their ECCs were grandfathered from the 1950s and 1970s — they do not have to meet modern emissions standards. And they should look into polluting jeepneys, buses, and many government trucks.

Economic recovery, fast and sustained growth, requires cheap, stable, and predictable energy. If the Philippines will stop building new coal plants while China, India, the US, Australia, South Korea, Indonesia, etc. keep building new and bigger ones, the dreaded emission impact is the same but we will deny ourselves the opportunity of additional affordable and stable power.
---------------

See also:
BWorld 478, Power demand contraction and natural gas cronyism, March 14, 2021 
BWorld 479, Lockdown déjà vu or back to normal, March 22, 2021 
BWorld 480, 10 trends in mortality and spending economics, March 29, 2021.

Covid 28, Drs. Villa and Landrito, Ms. Cuisia, on IVM and lockdown

Last Tuesday, Dr. Marivic Villa, a Filipina physician based in Florida shared this in the Concerned Doctors and Citizens of the PH (CDC PH) group, very informative. She gave permission to share it with other viber groups, I shared it, reposting here too.
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March 30, 2021

This is the comment I posted on Dr. Salvana’s FB account. Somehow I landed on his FB posts. He’s ignoring my comment, LOL 😅...this is very amusing to me. He's responding to the rest of the comments even the ones after me.

Hi Dr. Salvana, my name is Dr. Villa, I'm a practicing pulmonary Critical care/ Sleep medicine/ Internal medicine/ Functional Medicine provider here in Florida USA. I practice in this town called #TheVillages. It's the biggest retirement community in the US or I should say in the world. The entire town or metropolis is about 150K residents. Age 65 and above, the majority if not all with pre-existing comorbid conditions. They are very fortunate that they have excellent access to healthcare. I do see a lot of COVID cases. And I do treat them very aggressively in an outpatient basis.

Since late August/early September I've been using or prescribing IVERMECTIN in conjunction with Supplements protocol and surprisingly!!!, since then I've not had any significant morbidity or mortality from this disease. Well, except 1 who was a stage 4 lung cancer s/p chemoradiation therapy, he died. And I think he died from massive PE because he just suddenly collapsed. 

In Jan, 2021, I also started using MONOCLONAL ANTIBODY called Bamlanivimab by Elli Lily under EUA. The department of Health distribute it to us.

I also use it on an outpatient basis. I give the infusion in my office or clinic. 

With this combination of IVM and monoclonal, NOBODY gets severely ill, and NOBODY gets hospitalized. I also use systemic corticosteroids very aggressively both oral and IV in an OP basis. The diabetic hyperglycemic response is very easy to manage. I worry more if they became hypoglycemic for whatever reason.

I think the IVERMECTIN  is a very reasonable option for Filipinos considering the economic conditions of our kababayans.

From my standpoint, It is very effective, very SAFE!!! and at a very REASONABLE COST that most Filipinos can afford.

Even with the massive vaccination effort here in the US, I still prescribe it as prophylaxis. 

To me, vaccination is not the ultimate or is not the only answer to this pandemic. 

Not everybody can take the vaccine, not everybody can afford the vaccine. Not everybody has access to the vaccine.

And in the face of this rapid viral mutation. The vaccines will fall short in giving us the solution. 

It is already happening now!!!. For example Aztra Seneca is 100% ineffective to the African variant, 10-15%(???) less effective to the Brazilian variant. 🤷‍♀️

From my perspective, IVERMECTIN has better chances of combating this mutation. 

It's a very expensive proposition to keep on redesigning/reformulating the vaccine to overcome the mutation. Giving vaccine boosters that you would not be able to keep up with.

Only the well-to-do affluent countries, would be able to do this. We need to have good, acceptable, reasonable, accessible, available, and affordable therapeutics. I believe IVERMECTIN qualifies for this. 

Here in the US, we have coalitions of Doctors like FLCCC advocating the use of this agent for covid. Recommending it to become one of the first lines of therapy for COVID.

I was also very impressed with the BIRD meta-analysis done on most IVM trials from all over the world. They all line up. The positive result is very consistent.!

(I believe Bill Gates is doing or initiating a worldwide trial on this medication to be funded by him. 🤞🤞🤞. I hope it pushes through.)

We have several hospitals here that IVM has been included in the inpatient management both regular admit and in the ICU. Texas and Virginia are the 2 States for sure.

One of our pulmonologists here in Florida Dr. Rajter did the ICON study. The first study in the US was published in CHEST our official pulmonary journal in Oct. 2020. I had the privilege to communicate with him and he was very passionate and very excited to do further studies. This was presented in the US Senate.

The study was done in-hospital with 280 patients enrolled. The result of the study was very promising, mortality rate 38% on IVM vs 80% non-IVM (severely/critically ill patients).

The position of NIH is neutral they're not against it neither recommends it. But I have a feeling that it is going to be approved soon.

Currently, We are allowed to prescribe it as ” OFF LABEL USE”. It is also covered by prescription insurance here. 

Lastly, I am all for sensible mask use and physical distancing. I am very strict in my office. Mask is part of the outfit when you come to work and patients are not allowed to come in without one.

What do you think, what's your position on IVERMECTIN?
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Yesterday, Ms. Ann Cuisia, describing herself as a "Concerned citizen, supporter of government in winning the battle against covid", shared her thoughts on lockdown and CDC PH, reposting this with her permission.

March 31, 2021

We are a volunteer group of concerned doctors and citizens of the Philippines and we want to help our government safely lift the lockdown so that more lives are saved and more livelihoods are restored. Our taxpayers money are dried up already, we cannot afford extending this lockdown anymore and spend on non-scientific protocols yielding very low to no result.

We have been doing daily research on what would be more efficient and effective in addressing the pandemic and new studies show that the best approach is to include prophylaxis and early treatment protocol. Our government has a 3 pronged approach: barriers, hospitalization, vaccination.  All we want is for our leaders to include cheap effective alternative to treating COVID-19 and be implemented down to the barangay level, available to all Filipinos.

We need to have a public discourse about the protocols imposed on our citizens because this concerns our body, our health and our rights. We appeal to President Rodrigo Roa Duterte to allow “second opinion” from other doctors who are successful in treating thousands of patients. May they be allowed to present how they were able to treat and save significant number of patients.

Let us allow the public to question our protocols such as CT (cycle threshold) settings of our RT-PCR machine settings, yielding high false positives. Allow us to question DOH data reporting focused on cases and not number of hospitalized which determines whether our healthcare is overwhelmed or not. Allow us to have a choice regarding vaccination.

We all need to follow science as new studies come out every day. No one agency or individual can claim expertise to a pandemic we have not all experienced before. This is a continuous learning for everyone. And in this time of crisis, everyone needs to be humble and open.
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Brave and intelligent ladies. There are more. s
Meanwhile this is the statement issued by Dr. Allan Landrito, March 26, 2021:

And this forum last Tuesday was cool and attracted many participants both in Zoom and facebook page of PCCI Muntinlupa.

I will discuss more about that event in my column in BusinessWorld next week.
----------

See also:
Covid 25, WEF celebrated global lockdowns, March 01, 2021 
Covid 26, CDC PH Statement on Ivermectin, March 20, 2021 
Covid 27, Dr. Rafael Castillo on vaccine, Ivermectin, and lifting the lockdown, March 24, 2021.

Elections 2022, The iOptions survey result Q1 2021

The Presidential, Senatorial, local elections in the Philippines just 13 months away, May 2022, I will try to follow some trends. Let me start with the recent survey results by iOptions Ventures Corp. released yesterday. The survey covers other topics from vaccine awareness, willingness to be vaccinated, and the elections.

Satisfaction of President Duterte's administration remains high at 62%, but Manila Mayor Isko Moreno's record is much higher at 80%, wow. Followed by Sen. Manny Pacquiao at 64%. Trust ratings also given. See the report here, 
https://www.ioptionsventures.com/post/survey-report-sukat-ng-bayan-2021-q1.

If elections were held today, who would you vote for? The result is surprising -- the top two candidates are local government leaders, City Mayors Isko Moreno and Sara Duterte. Both for President and Vice-President.

Among Senatoriables, Dr. Willie Ong is harvesting his belated popularity after he lost in the 2019 Senatorial elections.

https://e9441e59-c548-4b5e-b49c-4462289d9ea9.usrfiles.com/ugd/e9441e_a632026dc03f4c979f8301aa64bb49df.pdf

Good work, iOptions. Thank you for making your survey results quickly available in the web.

---------------

See also: 
BWorld 326, Low growth, high taxes as election issue, May 14, 2019 
BWorld 327, Senatorial elections and economic legislation, May 18, 2019 
Issues and number of positions, candidates in May 2019 elections, May 18, 2019 
Live interviews at ONE News, election day, May 19, 2019.

Agri Econ 34, High corn demand to feed both animals and cars

Corn world prices keep rising, bad news on efforts to control higher inflation worldwide. Also soybeans and wheat. Current prices of these three commodities are at their eight-years high since around May-June 2013. Here are prices the last 12 months.

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodities

US President Joe Biden has pushed high oil-gas-ethanol prices by flatlining or cutting US oil-gas production by cancelling fracking in federal lands. Countries are slowly recovering from lockdowns, oil demand is rising but US oil output/supply is restricted by Biden policies. Autocrats in OPEC member-countries, Russia jumping with joy with higher oil prices. China is now into oil gas fracking too.

Watch ethanol prices, rising through the roof under this climate and energy policy environment. Biden wants to penalize fossil fuel to "save the planet" so demand for corn and other major agri crops rise, their prices rise to the roof too, corn feed animals and cars at the same time.

https://oilprice.com/

High corn prices means high poultry, hogs, beef prices. Here are the five-years prices of the three animal products.

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See also:

Agri Econ 31, Rising world rice prices, falling corn, poultry prices, May 24, 2020 
Agri Econ 32, High global prices of corn, soybeans and wheat, January 27, 2021 
Agri Econ 33, High poultry, beef, corn prices, March 03, 2021.

BWorld 480, 10 trends in mortality and spending economics

* My column in BusinessWorld, March 24, 2021.

The latest death and mortality data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) last week had many interesting aspects. Below we list 10 trends happening in the Philippines.

1 There were fewer deaths, not more, in 2020.

Since COVID-19 has killed thousands last year, the expectation is that there should be more deaths, high “excess mortality” over 2019 but this did not happen. The 1,700 deaths/day in 2019 became 1,578 deaths/day in 2020. Including some 95 COVID-19 deaths per day from March 11 (first COVID-19 death in the Philippines) to December.

2 There were 30,000 fewer pneumonia deaths, 7,000 fewer respiratory infection deaths, 5,000 fewer TB deaths. 

Most surprising is that there were over 42,000 fewer deaths from infectious diseases last year than in 2019.

There are two possible reasons: One, people became more health conscious, transmission of infectious diseases significantly declined. Two, ordinary pneumonia was labelled as COVID-19 pneumonia; ordinary infections became COVID-19 infections, ordinary tuberculosis (TB) became COVID-19 TB. Sort of COVID-19 has murdered many other infectious diseases.

One explanation for the possible mislabeling of causes as COVID-19 deaths is the high PhilHealth reimbursement. If a patient is hospitalized, recovers or dies, from what is declared as non-COVID-19 positive pneumonia, PhilHealth will pay a small amount. If it is due to COVID-19, case payment to the hospital is high: mild pneumonia about P100,000, severe pneumonia P333,000, critical pneumonia P786,000.

3 There were fewer transport accidents and fatal assaults, but more suicides.

Lockdowns, checkpoints, curfew, closure of all bars and occasional alcohol bans, led to fewer road accidents, less fights. But there was more self-inflicted harm or suicides (see Table 1).

4 Cases are rising.

Why? It coincided with the vaccination rollout this March. Two of the many possibilities: One, “escape mutations” of the virus, and/or vaccination-triggered cases in which the vaccine triggered symptoms or more inflammation in people who are positive but asymptomatic. Two, people’s immune systems have been weakened due to prolonged lockdown or mobility restrictions and lack of income, and there are no prevention prophylaxis, early treatment drugs for symptomatic persons to avoid hospitalization.

5 “Superspreader” scaremongering and OCTA.

Octa Research is “a polling, research and consulting firm” but it is now into making alarmist predictions. There have been at least six reports from different news sources: 1.) “Virus ‘Super Spreader’ cited as debates over reduced commuter distancing continue among Cabinet members, health experts” (One News, Sept. 16, 2020); 2.) “Seminars, minors in malls can be ‘dangerous superspreaders’” (Manila Bulletin, Dec. 9, 2020); 3.) “CTA Research warns gov’t vs. ‘superspreader events’ due to new COVID-19 policies” (Inquirer.net, Dec. 9, 2020); 4.) “Black Nazarene feast a ‘superspreader’ event, OCTA Research says” (GMA, Jan. 9, 2021); 5.) “Cinemas can be superspreader” (Daily Tribune, Feb. 13, 2021); 6.) “People below 18 may become COVID ‘supercarriers’ if age restrictions ease, OCTA warns” (Inquirer.net, Feb. 16, 2021).

We now turn to public spending during lockdown.

6 Revenues are falling to the floor…

With many businesses and companies closed, fully or partially, temporarily or permanently, government tax revenues declined significantly, from an average increase of P315 billion/year from 2016 to 2019, it declined by P281 billion in 2020, or a net decline of nearly P600 billion.

7 While spending is rising to the roof.

All the salaries, allowances and bonuses of government personnel from national to local and barangay levels were given. New subsidies were also created, bigger borrowings made and higher interest payment were paid.

8 GDP crashing to 2018 level.

The Philippines’ GDP contracted 9.5% in 2020 from 6.2% and 6% growth in 2018 and 2019 (see Table 2). This contraction put the GDP size at P17.5 trillion in 2020, similar to the size of the GDP in 2018 of P17.4 trillion. It is not the virus per se that caused this economic crash but the government’s strict and draconian lockdown policies.

9 Continued demonization of early treatment.

The Concerned Doctors and Citizens of the Philippines (CDC Ph) has been advocating for focused protection of the vulnerable people (the elderly, those with comorbidities) via prophylaxis and early treatment using Ivermectin for humans (not Ivermectin veterinary products) plus supplements Vitamins C and D, zinc, and melatonin. Then all forms of lockdown and mobility and business restrictions can be lifted. But the Health department, the Food and Drug Administration, and World Health Organization, and various medical societies disapprove of, if not demonize, early treatment.

10 Lockdown déjà vu.

The current mobility restrictions for two weeks until April 4 are similar to last year’s. Government said in mid-March 2020 that it would take “only two weeks” to flatten the curve. The two weeks became two months, became 12 months — 12 months of failure to control virus transmission. Lockdowns do not work. The mantra “new normal” is actually “new dictatorship.”
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See also:
BWorld 477, Global economic impact of lockdowns, March 09, 2021 
BWorld 478, Power demand contraction and natural gas cronyism, March 14, 2021 
BWorld 479, Lockdown déjà vu or back to normal, March 22, 2021.