THE START of the typhoon season is weeks away. Is the government ready for the “perfect storm” where a destructive typhoon aggravates the pandemic and the displaced cannot be packed into evacuation centers due to the social distancing rule?
A typhoon on top of a pandemic is one that we pray will not happen, but nonetheless should prepare for.
With the country averaging 20 typhoons a year, at least five of which are destructive, we should plan, ready our responders, and stockpile relief goods based on the worst-case scenario.
We are far from flattening the COVID-19 infection curve, but we must be ahead of the curve when it comes to preparing for another kind of disaster. We hope it won’t happen but we fear our COVID-19 situation would get worse if a destructive typhoon hits us.
In 2019 alone, there were at least 17 tropical storms recorded, with typhoons “Tisoy” and “Ursula” recording many casualties, destroying properties, halting airport operations and sending many people to evacuation centers. Thus as early as now, we must be ready. Let us have a system for evacuating people. Do we have enough relief goods? Ah yes, let us never forget social distancing.
In areas where quarantine rules have been relaxed to allow public works construction, let there be “Build-Build-Build” on the health front to push up the inventory of hospital beds. And why not upgrade Level 1 hospitals to Level 2 or 3 in anticipation of a long-drawn battle against COVID-19? All projections point to an increase of COVID-19 cases within the year and the development of a vaccine still not on the horizon. Level 1 hospitals are not equipped to treat life-threatening cases as it does not have intensive care units.
This is also the time to furnish our hospitals and clinics with equipment and staff them with personnel whose salary we should not scrimp on, for these professionals are essential for our survival.
