The World Health Organization defines COVID-19 as the “infectious disease caused by the most recently discovered coronavirus.” The virus has swept through the globe, affecting 144 countries and resulting in 5,735 deaths as of March 15.

Chris Cuomo, host of the CNN news-commentary program, Cuomo Prime Time, had good news about someone who had been found positive for the strain of coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2 which causes COVID-19.

In as much as the country is in limbo about the circumstances and consequences brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, the government needs to consider two equally important national concerns.

THE TEMPTATION with antitrust cases -- especially involving a company as high-profile as Apple Inc. -- is to identify an ulterior motive. Why have the authorities attacked this particular target? Why is the fine so big? Surely there’s a hidden agenda at work, with broader implications.

DURING THE WEEKEND the New York Times reported on several professional price gougers who had rounded up Purell hand sanitizer and other disinfectants from local stores to sell at steep markups on the internet. The article was cast as something of a human-interest piece, reflecting how crackdowns on scalping had left these would-be entrepreneurs with excess supply and nowhere to sell. But the public blowback against them was swift and scathing, and at least one has already had his stash seized by a state attorney general.

Wuhan’s bold approach of restricting travel in and out of the industrial city seems to serve as a model for other cities and even whole countries to copy in combating COVID-19, although the lockdown of Wuhan only slowed down the spread of the virus by three to five days because about 5 million residents fled when they sensed the city government would ban exit from it.

On Thursday night, President Rodrigo Duterte, upon the recommendation of health officials, announced that for 30 days starting March 15, Metro Manila will be put under “community quarantine,” a term that he said means a lockdown. The measure was in response to the rapidly rising number of COVID-19 infections in the last 10 days, increasing from only three (with one dead) to 140 (with 12 deceased) per the latest count (as of March 15).

The bad news is that the Wuhan virus -- a.k.a. severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 or SARS-CoV-2 which causes coronavirus disease 2019 or Covid-19 -- continues to expand worldwide. The good news is that humanity is a survivor of many deadly viruses in the past and modern and innovator medicines and vaccines keep coming.

The conversion of an Ordinary Stock Corporation to a One Person Corporation (OPC) is explained in Section 131.

OIL MAJORS and big miners have been falling over themselves to promise better behavior when it comes to greenhouse gases. A significant number now say they are targeting zero emissions. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees on exactly what that means. It leaves investors clear on good intentions, but far less so on how to price transition risk, compare strategies and judge success.

I anguished over the creeping amnesia when it comes to our wrenching from the dictatorship 34 years ago. But Filipinos have no sense of history, my dear confidant and most patient mentor said. And Manong sent me a copy of Søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, to re-read and ponder in my mature years what had perhaps gone over my head in my college Literature classes.

The Lancet, the most accessible peer-reviewed medical journal, discusses the COVID-19 crisis in stark terms. Read Roy Anderson et al., “How will country-based mitigation measures influence the course of the COVID-19 epidemic?” (March 9, 2020). The authors state that “we calculate that approximately 60% of the population would become infected.”