![]() ![]() Subnational governments like LGUs are confronted with a health crisis that have economic, social and fiscal impact. Some policies in place, such as voluntary physical distancing, wearing of face masks and face shields, mass testing, and school closures, could be effective in one locality but not in another. ![]() Īs national governments implemented large-scale ‘blanket’ policies to control the pandemic, local government units (LGUs) have to consider granular policies as well as real-time interventions to address differences in the local COVID-19 transmission dynamics due to heterogeneity and diversity in communities. The success or failure of these policies exposed the strengths or weaknesses of governments as well as the range of inequalities in the society. In responding to the threat of the pandemic, public health policies included epidemiological and socio-economic factors. ĭuring the first months of the pandemic, several countries struggled to find tolerable, if not the most effective, measures to ‘flatten’ the COVID-19 epidemic curve so that health facilities will not be overwhelmed. These measures differ in scale and speed among countries, as some countries have more resources and are more prepared in terms of healthcare capacity and availability of stringent policies. Early health measures were primarily aimed at preventing and reducing transmission in populations at risk. As countries around the world face the continuing threat of the COVID-19 pandemic, national governments and health ministries formulate, implement and revise health policies and standards based on recommendations by world health organization (WHO), experiences of other countries, and on-the-ground experiences. In the Philippines, the number of cases exceeded 473,000. ![]() Since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of cases have already reached 82 million worldwide at the end of 2020. If these policies are to be standardized, it would help any country’s preparedness for future health emergencies. Strict border control, early implementation of lockdowns, establishment of quarantine facilities, effective communication to the public, and monitoring efforts were the defining factors that helped these LGUs curtail the harm that was brought by the pandemic. Among metropolitan cities, Davao was a ‘good’ outlier with respect to demographic factors. Our results showed that cluster of cities and provinces in Central Luzon (Region III), CALABARZON (Region IV-A), the National Capital Region (NCR), and Central Visayas (Region VII) are the ‘good’ outliers with respect to factors such as working population, population density, ICU beds, doctors on quarantine, number of frontliners and gross regional domestic product. If a data pair ( x, y) exceeds, by two standard deviations, the mean of the Euclidean metric values between the sets X and Y, the pair is assumed to be a ‘good’ outlier. For each locality, infection and mortality data (dataset Y) were compared to the economic, health, and demographic data (dataset X) using Euclidean metric d=( x− y) 2, where x ∈ X and y ∈ Y. Methodsĭata were taken from public databases such as Philippine Department of Health, Philippine Statistics Authority Census, and Google Community Mobility Reports. The purpose of this study is to identify notable non-pharmaceutical interventions of these outlying LGUs in the country using quantitative methods. Some LGUs have demonstrated a remarkable response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose is to keep the number of infections and mortality at bay while minimizing the economic impact of the pandemic. The local government units (LGUs)–municipalities and provinces–can adopt any of these measures depending on the extent of the pandemic in their locality. Other measures also involve prohibiting individuals at a certain age bracket from going outside of their homes. To mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Philippine national government through its Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases outlined different quarantine measures wherein each level has a corresponding degree of rigidity from keeping only the essential businesses open to allowing all establishments to operate at a certain capacity. ![]() Responses of subnational government units are crucial in the containment of the spread of pathogens in a country. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |