Coronovirus in the Philippines

Both of my kids have been sick since Tuesday, first Janna then James on Wednesday, both started with a bit of a fever and Janna's cough is now getting much worse and now James has a cough, granny is ok so far and does not have symptoms and tita Dhang is double vaccinated with Pfizer.

I am incredibly scared for them right now.

It's possible yes, but I'm just really scared for them because I am sitting here 6500 miles away from them.

I'm tempted to agree Malcolm.

The thing I don't get about what Duterte is saying though is that it implies that the entire country will be confined to their homes?

I mean what are the police and Barangay officials going to say to people, "why are you not vaccinated" when the answer is going to be "there's no bloody vaccine".

Yes anti-vax sentiment is huge in the Philippines but that's not why so few are vaccinated, it's a general lack of supply and some hesitancy due to a lack of faith in the Chinese vaccines, there is a degree of snobbery that they want the expensive American vaccine rather than the cheap Chinese one just because someone attaches big numbers to the American and lower numbers to the Chinese one, they are all still pretty good at stopping you dying.

The thing with Duterte is that what he says does not have to make sense, he has in fact essentially said you are all under house arrest and indeed they are re-introducing ECQ in the National Capital Region from the 6th of August and that is the tightest lockdown.

My kids were due back at school, online school again, for another year on the 10th of August we just paid the fees today and got their books but with ECQ the teachers will not be able to get to the school to be able to use the online teaching resources of the school, so I expect like last year school will not start until late August.

It's nothing but a soundbite, it's hey look at me I am your crazy hardman president.

Having now uttered it though it gives him another excuse to brutalise the population as he can say I warned you.