Give or take a day, it looks like this surge in cases began right around Feb. 20. The original ECQ ended Feb. 15. However, so far, there has been no “two week delayed” surge in fatalities, or any surge in fatalities at all. This suggests to me that RP did a moderately good job of preparing for additional hospitalizations when the quarantine / mitigation was loosened up.
The surge in cases is very strong, though. Supposedly the new ECQ is to prepare RP’s healthcare system to treat serious COVID cases
https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2021/03/30/2088101/palace-says-ecq-extension-last-resort ,
but, RP already had 11 months to do so. I question how much more can be done, unless the gov’t simply underestimated how strong the surge would be when things opened up?
It seems to me more likely that little more can be done, and the gov’t is grasping at straws, perhaps hoping to buy a little more time for treatments and / or vaccine deliveries to increase for those at highest risk?
Duterte has been sucking so much Xi pole (hey just Biden) only the dangerous Chinese vaccine is available here.
No one wants to take it.