After a year of the pandemic, the Philippines is still lagging behind other countries in terms of COVID-19 response. Should officials be blamed for this?
APO Hiking Society member Jim Paredes threw shade on the government regarding the irrelevant assignment of positions in the COVID-19 task force.
He pointed out that the COVID-19 task force leaders of Germany, the USA, Spain, the Netherlands, and Australia are all medical doctors while locally, a former Army General was assigned to lead the Philippines against COVID-19.
https://twitter.com/Jimparedes/status/1379641832091480066
Duterte is known for promoting the armed forces of the country. However, during this medical crisis, we should realize that the best task force leader should be someone who is medically inclined.
@Simply_Clinton, a doctor, also pointed out that Duterte assigned the wrong people to those vital positions.
According to him, all czars should be medical doctors, the testing and vaccine czar should be at least an infectious disease specialist and the contact tracing czar should be an epidemiologist.
Ang testing czar – dapat MD yan. Minimum requirement, infectious disease specialist.
Ang contact tracing czar – dapat MD din yan. Min reqt, epidemiologist
Ang vaccination czar – dapat din MD. Min reqt: Infectious Disease specialist
as in, retired generals? really digong?
— simply_clinton (@Simply_Clinton) April 6, 2021
Recently, Duterte answered why he appointed retired generals in leading the COVID-19 task force. Regarding the vaccine czar, Duterte believes that it is not a medicine-related matter.
“This is a mechanical act. It is not a study of medicine. Kaya tinawag ko si [vaccine czar Carlito] Galvez, para siya ang magdala,” he said.
A medical crisis can only be solved by medical experts. So, we must start to shift to a scientific approach against the pandemic if we want this to end the soonest.
