When hospitals burst at the seams

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

 

No one is telling us what to do if and when hospitals have become full and can no longer take in COVID-19-stricken patients, not to mention having shortage of health personnel. Where to take the patients? What to do with them, how to care for them at home or elsewhere? What treatments to apply? What medicines to take, if any? That is not even the worst-case scenario. I dread conjuring up the worst.

Tell us, please. Tell us what we can do, what the government will do.

We are having a surfeit of instructions on preventive measures on how to keep COVID-19 (a.k.a. novel coronavirus) at bay. Columnist and anthropologist Michael L. Tan calls it

“infodemic.” It is now coming out of my pores. Add the keep-calm reminders, mini-homilies and prayer chains online, holier-than-thou admonitions, horror scenarios, even laugh-in gags that provide comic relief.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III has been saying it repeatedly: It is not a matter of if but when.

 

The when has come. COVID-19 cases in the Philippines are no longer few and far between—as few as less than 10 initially a week ago—with the virus mostly contracted abroad. Two days ago, the cases tripled in less than 24 hours, from 10 to 24 to 33. And they are the reported and tested cases. What about the unreported and untested? No deaths among Filipinos.

China has patients in the tens of thousands. And now, South Korea and Italy have thousands. What makes us Filipinos think we are immune? Because we take a bath more than once a day? Or are high in antibodies? This has nothing to do with COVID-19—or because we soap and wash our butts instead of just wiping them with toilet paper? In this COVID-19 season, people abroad are hoarding toilet paper, hence the shortage. Filipinos can teach them a thing or two on how to use “tabo” in the absence of a bidet.

 

I know from a firsthand source that one hospital already has all its isolation rooms filled up; it had to put up waiting tents outside for those seeking admission for various ailments while still being cleared for COVID-19, taaar travel histories being taken into account.
 

I know what this is like. In September last year, I thought I had dengue because I was feverish. Tests done in a hospital showed I had exposure to dengue, but the young resident’s interpretation was that I was positive for dengue and needed to be admitted. Too bad there was no room available.

 

I went to a second hospital and on to the third. All full. The hospital lobbies were like airport scenes full of stranded passengers with canceled flights. I made calls and ended up in a fourth (The Medical City) where I knew people who cared. There, I was confined and underwent more tests. I had UTI, not dengue. I was discharged the next day. I am not a hospital habitué, by the way.
 

So. Are we ready for a worst-case scenario? I imagine places that used to serve as evacuation centers while nature unleashed its fury serving as makeshift wards for COVID-19 patients who cannot be admitted to hospitals that are bursting at the seams. Is this not a possible, feasible, manageable operation?

And if patients opt to remain at home, what are to be done to make them better instead of consigning them to the Grim Reaper? Nothing has been said about this scenario. Wala, waley, nada. Just ride out the storm? Wait? What medicines, if any?
 

At least in dengue cases where there is no cure, frequent hydration is always being emphasized.
 

I have yet to hear health officials tell us what exactly is being done in treating COVID-19 patients now confined in the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine and now in regular hospitals. What is the protocol? (That word, so often heard.)
 

For flatulence relief, a professor and poetry buff from the University of the Philippines has put together President Duterte’s stream-of-consciousness utterances (“ramblings,” he called them) at a recent press conference on the COVID-19 cases into haha-haiku-like lines. Google “The Kit” by Rodrigo Roa Duterte.

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Microbe-turned-Goliath

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

 

A handout illustration image courtesy of the National Institutes of Health taken with a scanning electron microscope shows SARS-CoV-2 (round blue objects) emerging from the surface of cells cultured in the lab. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19.Image Credit: AFP

Speculations are rife on the true origin of the deadly coronavirus or COVID-19 that has claimed the lives of more than 3,000 human beings worldwide since the first outbreak in China two months ago. (For the latest, use the coronavirus infection tracker on the internet.)

 

The speculations posted online range from the bizarre to the terrifying. The hilarious provides comic relief for the hypochondriacs and paranoids of this world.

The official word from world health officials is that the virus could have come from a wildlife market in Wuhan, China, the outbreak’s epicenter. Is that all there is to know? To put it a certain way, are they busy keeping us in the dark?

 

Is the rogue virus an escapee from a mad scientist’s lab? How did it find its way out of a secret lab that creates deadly microbes for biological warfare? An experiment gone awry? Whose pet mutant was it? Never have the words “gone viral” become so literally true.

When I dropped by a bargain bookstore for great finds, I asked the guy at the counter if bookworms have been looking for Dean Koontz’s novel “The Eyes of Darkness.” Many, he replied. In his 1981 novel, Koontz describes Wuhan-400 as “China’s most important and dangerous new biological weapon in a decade.” Prophetic, readers gasp. I have the e-book version sent to me by a fellow journo.

COVID-19 has become a Goliath threatening economies, communities, nations, and many facets of our existence. Think civilization (and ancient) that is China, now an ailing dragon in intensive care.

 

I did some kind of speed-reading exercise and scanned the papers for the coronavirus. COVID-19 was popping out of the pages.

 

Call these apocalyptic, but these are happening now:

 

“Empty streets, economic turmoil as virus alters daily life worldwide…Saudi Arabia closed Islam’s holiest sites to foreign pilgrims. In Japan, professional baseball teams played to deserted stadiums. The French government advised the public to forgo customary greeting kisses.”

 

“The Louvre museum in Paris shut its doors to art lovers and tourists for a second day on Monday as management held talks with workers over the risks associated with coronavirus.”

“Virus deaths exceed 3,000; 63 countries report cases…the virus has now infected more than 88,000 people and spread to more than 60 countries…”

 

“A surge of infections outside of mainland China triggered a steep fall in Asian share markets and Wall Street stock futures as investors fled to safe havens such as gold. Oil prices tumbled and the Korean won fell to its lowest since August.”

 

“Switzerland has already introduced a ban on events expected to draw 1,000 people…”

Good news, bad news: “Washington—Nasa satellite images show a dramatic fall in pollution over China that is ‘partly related’ to the economic slowdown due to the coronavirus outbreak…”

 

“Philippine Airlines recorded the biggest loss in its corporate history due to what its chief described as ‘unsustainable long-term debt and lease obligations (in) billions of US dollars’ aggravated by the Taal volcano eruption and the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.”

“At least 7,000 workers are about to be laid off within the next six months due to COVID-19, according to the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines.”

 

“Malaysian firm offers system to track virus.”

 

“Tourist arrivals in Thailand are down to 50 percent compared with a year ago. In Italy which has the most reported cases of any country outside of Asia, hotel bookings are falling.”

 

“South Korea closes churches as COVID-19 tally passes 3,500…That came a day after the biggest daily jump of 813 cases in South Korea’s battle with the largest virus outbreak outside China…”

 

“Economists have forecast global growth will slip to 2.4 percent this year, the slowest since the Great Recession in 2009… (If) COVID-19 becomes a global pandemic, economists expect the impact could be much worse, with the US and other global economies falling into recession.” 

In the Philippines, no COVID-19 deaths so far. The lone fatality was a Chinese tourist. Patients under observation are either foreigners or Filipinos who arrived from outside the country. Oratio imperata pa more!

 

A positive note: Our endangered pangolins, among the wildlife suspected to be COVID-19 carriers, might no longer be a coveted delicacy in China.#

 

For more news about the novel coronavirus click here.
What you need to know about Coronavirus.
For more information on COVID-19, call the DOH Hotline: (02) 86517800 local 1149/1150.

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VCO in the time of Covid-19

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

 

From a Reuters report: “The surge of infections outside mainland China triggered steep falls in Asian share markets and Wall Street stock futures as investors fled to safe havens such as gold. Oil prices tumbled and the Korean won fell to its lowest since August.”

That, folks, is what a microorganism, namely COVID-19, has done, and that is not straight out of a sci-fi scenario. It is for real.

There have been instances of panic buying, hoarding, changes in daily routines and social engagements and behaviors. (No “beso-beso.”) Businesses have been greatly affected, notably the travel industry.

 

But raking profits are the manufacturers of face masks, alcohol, disinfectants, sanitizers, and even Vitamin C. Shelves became empty of these items after the World Health Organization raised the classification of the outbreak to something of international concern. But it is not yet a pandemic, folks, health officials could well announce with their faces hidden behind face masks even as the number of positive cases changes for the higher every day and so does the death count.

But to cut to the chase… Virgin coconut oil (VCO) is making a ripple, if not a splash again, during this time when the COVID-19 outbreaks outside of mainland China where it originated, are becoming more pronounced. There is news about a research proposal on the use of VCO in the treatment of COVID-19 infections. In 2005, when the bird flu hit, there was a proposal, too, to study the effectiveness of VCO. I did write about it.

 

It has been more than a decade since VCO became news, thanks to the efforts of the late Dr. Conrado Dayrit and Bruce Fife. Dayrit wrote the book “The Truth About Coconut Oil: The Drugstore in a Bottle” (Anvil, 2005) with a foreword by Fife, himself an author and VCO advocate.

In 2005, I wrote an Inquirer magazine cover story on Dayrit and his VCO advocacy. Dayrit was an eminent pharmacologist-internist, cardiologist, author, professor, and unrelenting medical researcher. He helped put back coconut oil in its rightful place in the realm of food and medicine.

 

Behind all that was the fact that saturated fats, coconut oil in particular, were being blamed for increased cholesterol levels that led to heart disease. This was the gist of the so-called Lipid Diet-Heart Theory propounded by the West. Dayrit bashed that as “brainwashing.”

 

Attempts to prove the theory wrong were either ignored or suppressed because the American seed oil industry had everything to gain from the downfall of coconut oil. Coconut oil has since regained its good name, thanks to Dayrit and his counterparts in scientific research that have proven that coconut oil, a saturated fat, is a medium-chain fatty acid, not long chain like what is found in animal fats and other oils. “No oil in God’s whole creation can compare with it in its numerous actions,” Dayrit said with pride.

 

He was then pushing 90 and studying the efficacy of VCO for HIV-AIDS when death overtook him in 2007. Dayrit’s landmark 1998 study had established that coconut oil alone could lower the viral load of HIV-infected patients and improve their overall health.

Dayrit left a treasure trove of research findings that cry out to be pursued further. Present health secretary Francisco Duque III was also the health secretary at that time and knew about the research. Dayrit’s son Manuel later succeeded Duque as health secretary.

It is now Dayrit’s other son, Fabian Antonio Dayrit, professor emeritus of Ateneo de Manila University, and Dr. Mary Newport of Spring Hill Neonatology in the US who are proposing a clinical study of COVID-19 positive patients that would involve the use of VCO.

 

VCO and its derivatives are cheap, safe and have been proven effective as antivirals. What are we waiting for? The coconut is God’s gift to the Filipino people.

                                                                    * * *

The “1000 and one malongs” campaign for the Taal volcano evacuees brought generous donations totaling P114,700 in cash which was spent for malongs and underwear. These were brought directly to the evacuees or channeled through the Good Shepherd Sisters and, later, also ARMK. Someone from my long-ago Ateneo days belatedly popped in P50,000 which was channeled through the sisters. Salamat!

 

For more news about the novel coronavirus click here.
What you need to know about Coronavirus.
For more information on COVID-19, call the DOH Hotline: (02) 86517800 local 1149/1150.

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Outbreak at sea, like a dystopian movie

Philippine Daily Inquirer/OPINION/by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

 

It seems straight out of a drama movie, reminiscent of the likes of “Voyage of the Damned” (which had Oscar nominations) that tells the story of German Jews aboard the St. Louis bound for Havana to escape the Nazis during the outbreak of World War II. Alas, no country would receive them. (They were not the same Jewish refugees that the Philippines took in.) So the ship had to return to Hitler’s Germany where the refugees, many of them highly talented, ended up in concentration camps or were gassed to death. Those who survived told harrowing tales.

 

This month, MS Westerdam became a cruise ship without a harbor, marooned at sea for two weeks. It was not allowed to dock anywhere in Asia, until Cambodian authorities allowed it to anchor. One of its passengers tested positive for COVID-19.

But real-life drama still unfolding every day is in the cruise ship Diamond Princess, presently docked in Yokohama, Japan. Someday, it could be mined for some movie script or other, considering that the COVID-19 outbreak among its passengers is the first of its kind on board, perhaps unprecedented in recorded maritime history, epidemiology, disease control, and whatever else.

 

The cruise ship, with 3,700 passengers and crew, docked in Japan early February. Although only one fell ill initially — a Chinese who disembarked in Hong Kong — his fellow passengers soon also fell ill one after another even while already quarantined inside the ship in Japan waters.

The Diamond Princess drama is one dystopian plot for the screen. I am not being facetious. Some movie a la “Outbreak” starring Dustin Hoffman or the TV docuseries “Pandemic” would be instructive.

 

Quarantined passengers have been recording their daily ordeals with their phone cameras. There is so much material. Not to forget the heroic medical workers on land, like those who raised the alarm in Wuhan (the epicenter) in China, and were made to suffer for it by their own government.

Let me digress. In this jet age, ships are no longer only for cargo, they are also for fun and entertainment. If you’ve been on a cruise, you’d realize when you step inside the ship that it is one floating luxury hotel with people of various nationalities and backgrounds.

It is like one barangay, if you may, especially when you see that the crew — chefs, cooks, engineers, entertainers, musicians, beauticians, etc.—are mostly Filipinos. Oh, and there could be a whodunit on the side. During the only cruise of my life (on the Mediterranean), there was a fellow passenger who fell into the sea (a suicide or was there a crime committed?). Years later, the incident was tackled on the Oprah show. A story, indeed.

Diamond Princess is British-owned, so Japanese authorities deserve profuse thanks for allowing it to dock and providing Japanese medical workers to care for the ailing crew and passengers, many of them Japanese, as well as those who remain quarantined in the ship.

 

Some governments are already repatriating their citizens, positive or not for COVID-19. I am concerned about the Filipino crew who tested positive (35 of the 538, as of Tuesday) and are in Japanese hospitals. The Filipinos in the ship are to be flown home soon and quarantined again.

 

Questions have been raised on whether it was wise to quarantine the passengers together inside the ship because, just the same, the virus continued to spread among them. But what better choice did health authorities have? The situation is unprecedented. The number of cases in the Diamond Princess is the biggest cluster outside China and next to Japan’s.

As of Wednesday morning, the reported death toll in China alone had jumped to 2,004 after a surge of 1,749 new cases. Almost 14,000 have recovered. Hubei alone has accounted for 70,548 cases.

 

Before the age of vaccines, during the bygone age of exploration and conquest, countless men died of diseases during sea voyages, their corpses consigned to the ocean depths. The ships brought diseases to immune-deficient natives. Today, this planet’s jet-setting citizens are vulnerable as ever to rogue viruses and mutant bacteria. Microscopic and unseen by the naked eye, they could be used for biological warfare. #

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