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Using the time out to clock in

The current time-out, granted at the request of the medical community, is a gift that should not be squandered. If we continue to do the same things that were done in the past, we may be doomed to a continuing loop of time-outs, without any real hope for winning against COVID-19. Now is the time to put changes into place — using principles of behavioral economics (nudge) instead of heavy-handed police enforcement (punch), executing triage at home rather than in the hospital, using research and data to guide decisions and innovate instead of relying on impulse and intuition.

Because COVID-19 continues to evolve with new strains, we have to make sure our policies adapt as well. With mutation, the disease has become more infectious, but not necessarily more lethal. However, we must make ordinary people, not medical personnel, the first line of defense. For all the messaging about the advantages of wearing masks, the latest revelation is that masks can act like a vaccine, creating a barrier to COVID-19 viral exposure. At lower levels of infection, people who are infected tend to be more likely mild or asymptomatic.

Our overworked medical workers can get the time out they need if we are able to keep mild or asymptomatic cases quarantined safely at home rather than being brought to the hospital (where they may not be accommodated anyway). Because a mild case manifests itself with flu-like symptoms, it is best, at this point, to isolate at home for two weeks, and call a doctor to monitor you through telemedicine. Having an oximeter at home is crucial so you can monitor your oxygen saturation rate (a rate below 92 means you have to go to a hospital).

But the more important aspect of these two weeks is to finally do what we should have done in the past quarantine, as well as re-evaluate our current responses. Here are some suggestions:

1.  Create more ICU Beds

Because COVID cases are increasing, severe and critical COVID-19 cases continue to rise as well. They now represent 1.5% of total active cases. These cases need ICU beds. There are 525 ICU beds (at 77% occupancy as of Aug. 3) in NCR out of 1,400 nationally. We need to build the beds now. It cost P14 million at our hospital to outfit a 26-room wing for negative pressure ICU capacity. The time it took to construct was one month. The total cost for 525 more beds is around P283 million.

2.  Re-think Testing

The appeal to do mass-testing has, unfortunately, been interpreted to mean any test will do, and this has resulted in the unintended consequence of having individuals who had been deemed negative via antibody testing, spreading COVID-19. Rapid antibody test kits proliferated because demand was driven up by businesses using this test as a condition for employees returning to work. Unfortunately, these tests do not catch the virus, only the antibodies. Antibodies emerge on Day 8 of the disease, when those who have the virus are no longer that infectious. They also miss at least 50% of those infected who do not have antibodies yet but have the virus. The requirement for rapid antibody tests has also led to more corruption in the healthcare system, especially given the inconsistency with which LGUs and corporations have applied return-to-work rules.

3.  Empty Non-urgent COVID Beds

Patients can be sent home earlier, and they should be encouraged to do so. The average stay for a COVID-19 patient at our hospital had been 20 days. This can be cut in half; by day 10, they are no longer infectious. We had an asymptomatic 96-year-old lady by exposure who went through two swabs by Day 14, with a request that she be kept longer until PCR-negative. At that point, she was clearly still shedding virus but noninfectious. Fortunately, the patient’s family cooperated in bringing her home.

Doctors have to cooperate in this nudge. LGU’s and communities need to change their return acceptance policy so as not to overburden our very limited testing capacity. The US Centers for Disease Control advises that people can leave isolation 10 days from onset without having to wait for a negative test. 

4.  Use the Cooperative Model for PPE Purchases

At our hospital, PPEs cost around P600-700/set, consisting of an N95 Mask, isolation gown, green gown, earloop mask, booties, head cap, face shield or goggles, and nitrile gloves. On April 1, the Department of Health (DoH) announced the expected arrival of PPE sets procured for P1.8 billion, or P1,800/set. That’s three times what we paid for ours.

The One Hospital Group, composed of NCR public and private hospitals led by DOH Undersecretary Dr. Leopoldo Vega, has a better appreciation for purchasing economies for PPEs and equipment. This can include even medicines with proven efficacy like remdesivir (currently in short supply globally ) and dexamethasone. They should be properly empowered to manage supply requirements, pricing and logistics, for the NCR hospital ecosystem.

5.  Properly Fund the Whole of Health Care

Much has been discussed about the current crisis of PhilHealth, but the institution is an important and crucial element in the survival of the medical care industry. Here are changes that should be considered:

•  Refocus reimbursements on in-patient support. Let the private sector fund its own testing, however wasteful the rapid antibody test kit exercise was. As stated earlier, the cost of doubling NCR ICU capacity is (only) P283 million. But it is a strategic element of what the lockdown was

originally set to do — give the health sector a reprieve to catch up, particularly for the severe and critical immuno-compromised cases, which are causing the hospital shutdowns. If we miss out on health capacity planning (once again), we shut down the economy (once more).

•  Recapitalize Philhealth. By going overboard on testing, whether it be on PCR or rapid antibody, at the expense of treatment, we not only underinvest in physical capacity, but also threaten private hospitals’ financial viability. Our hospital is already out-of-pocket over P500 million, awaiting Philhealth reimbursement, and not just for COVID-19. There are other private hospitals in the same boat. Because collections have floundered with businesses shutting down and OFWs given pay-in waivers, Philhealth finances need to be reset.

•  Let Philhealth allow balance billing. Since private hospitals, which comprise two-thirds of the hospital sector, are not supported with equipment and facility budgets by the government and have to pay their own way, Philhealth should allow balance billing for COVID-19 cases. Part of the problem here is that Philhealth case reimbursement rates are based simply on pneumonia, thereby understating the impact of COVID-19 on other organ complications.

•  Incentivize COVID-19 disclosures. Since this is a two-week disease, why not announce a P3,000 shelter subsidy for targeted high-infection areas, based on symptom-based assessment by a clinician, using other basic tools like a temperature scan, oximeter, and chest X-ray, maybe with a confirmatory PCR swab if results are available in 24 hours (otherwise forget it). This can ferret out the mildly symptomatic, with an accompanying option (doctor’s discretion) to  community quarantine if space isolation is an issue. Contact tracing for the exposed will naturally follow suit (but without the subsidy).

Since this whole disease began, there have been over 100,000 COVID-19 cases. Flushing out another 100,000 in high-infectious areas to reduce cluster transmission risk through disclosure incentives costs but P300 million. This compares with the P1 trillion reduction in GDP and 5  million loss of jobs for 45 days’ lockdown.

6.  Stop the Spread, not the Economy

Distance between persons and duration of exposure are two elements critical to controlling COVID-19 spread. Already among the longest and hardest lockdowns in the world, the NCR shut down its emergent public transport system once again from Aug. 4-18. Totally.

Research about the infective aspect of public transport, however, suggests that with proper management, public transport can remain open. The key is to reduce crowding. Pre-COVID-19, there were 15 million passenger trips daily within the NCR. Theoretically, there should be double the number now, for social distancing purposes.

Work-from-home, shelter at home for the elderly, and children not going to school cuts trips by at least one-third. As part of a hurry-up plan, the NCR bus fleet can also be increased by 2.5 times, to 12,000 units, and run on two shifts, also saving jobs for displaced jeepney transport workers.

Buses can move twice the number of passengers as jeeps, and 15 times the passengers of cars. We can raise transport fares and let the market seek going-to-work equilibrium under the new normal and ensure that there will be no crowding on public transport and much less traffic. 

In fact, if the national government changes its strategy to stagger work hours from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m., the private sector will follow, with more service and public-sector jobs created. Job creation is a notch above direct transfers as a preferred economic stimulus tool.

J. Xavier B. Gonzales is the Chairman of The Medical City.

Being Right

Philosopher Philip Devine recently wrote about today’s most pervasive ideology: “covidism.” It has two elements: “scientific fundamentalism and a fallacious argument from fear.” The former claims that “those who question the [COVID-19] ‘consensus’ are anti-science or guilty of ‘denial.’” The latter references “an irrational appeal to fear [that] ignores other sources of danger and urges us to take precautions with unexamined costs.”

 This leads us to another term Professor Devine used: “Coronaphobia,” which “has generated a perverse morality, for which staying home and watching Netflix is an act of heroism like that of the soldiers who fought in the invasion on D-Day. Avoiding fellow human beings, even crossing the street to avoid them, and wearing a mask when you cannot avoid them, is an expression of solidarity.”

For how long? “Until it is ‘safe’ — which may mean forever.”

By now, it’s become clear that this pandemic was driven more by fear rather than facts. The irrationality of is such that we’re in perhaps the only pandemic in history where otherwise healthy people are quarantined for a virus that (at least for the Philippines) is less deadly than car crashes, tuberculosis, diabetes, hypertensive diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, pneumonia, cancer, ischemic heart disease, and malnutrition.

And that’s just a partial list.

We actually shut down our economy and schools, perhaps driving up depression and suicides, for that.

The devastation that lockdowns bring were not, understandably, apparent at first. Hence, the semi-humorous contemplation of a surge of “pandemic babies” as a result of this in-house quarantine. That couples, locked together in their homes with nothing else to do, would spend most of their time procreating.

But apparently, 148 days into this lockdown, the opposite might actually be true.

A study published in The Lancet on July 14 found that “that continued trends in female educational attainment and access to contraception will hasten declines in fertility and slow population growth.”

Furthermore, it stated that “23 countries in the reference scenario, including Japan, Thailand, and Spain, were forecasted to have population declines greater than 50% from 2017 to 2100; China’s population was forecasted to decline … [and] the USA was forecasted to once again become the largest economy in 2098.”

This is interesting because Philippine fertility rates have continuously fallen (even before the RH Law took into effect). Example: 2017 saw a 3.4% decline from 2016, 2018 fell 3.52% from 2017, 2019 fell .97% from 2018, and 2020 fell .98% from 2019.

Marriage in the Philippines itself is on shaky grounds. Philippine Statistics Authority data indicates a steady decline from 2007 to 2016 (albeit, 2017-2018 showing with relative increases). Annulments meanwhile increasingly rose from 2001 to 2014. 

The entire psychological and social effect of this lockdown, as well as the porn panic that governments and media wrought on the citizenry, remain to be seen. But this early, dating may already have taken a hit.

A Journal of Personality and Social Psychology research study (Miller and Maner, “Overperceiving disease cues: The basic cognition of the behavioral immune system,” 2012, reported in The Conversation) “has shown  that the threat of disease leads us to avoid contact with people who compromise our well-being and pose a risk of infecting us. Yet romantic behaviour is generally characterised by a need for physical intimacy and bodily contact which is very much at odds with behavior motivated to remain free of disease. Dating behavior could clearly be altered while concerns of an infectious disease continue to affect the way we live.”

The point is: in today’s world of virus-induced home isolation, of conscious ultra-hygiene, self-righteous distancing, with everyone’s minds conditioned to believe that merely speaking to or eating a meal with another are lethal, what could possibly be left for the romantic or sexual?

“These are the lips, powerful rudders pushing through groves of kelp, the girl’s terrible, unsweetened taste of the whole ocean, its fathoms: this is that taste,” wrote Adrienne Rich in “That Mouth.”

And yet with every individual hidden behind layers of masks and face shields, and touching is taboo, exposed mouths are now as pornographic as sexual organs and the shaking of hands as scandalous as the most torrid of kisses.

Sex is messy. If it isn’t, you’re probably doing it wrong. Stephen Fry once wrote of “those damp, dark, foul-smelling and revoltingly tufted areas of the body that constitute the main dishes in the banquet of love.”

But it’s there, the fact that such is another human being, is precisely where sex’s repulsion and attraction lies, that make the entire gamut of sexuality a fascinating world unto itself.

Nevertheless, perhaps it’ll be the other way around. Perhaps rather than be disgusted with love and sex, this pandemic may lead people to each other. One Finnish study (Kunal Bhattacharya , et. al., 2016) found evidence through data mining that — indeed, for people — absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

Well, at least we know science isn’t useless.

Jemy Gatdula is a Senior Fellow of the Philippine Council for Foreign Relations and a Philippine Judicial Academy law lecturer for constitutional philosophy and jurisprudence.

Beyond Brushstrokes

Past, present, future.

Time as we know it is linear. In the cosmic dimension, it is always present.

In my mind, time is circular.

For a long period, the dark moments and long nights seemed endless.

The dreams — monochromatic shades of black, charcoal gray, a blur of pewter haze and shapeless shadows.

The angst was sharp, searing.

Grace from the divine beamed to uplift the spirit.

The brilliant sunset and afterglow are still dramatic in the mind’s eye.

The first brushstrokes are tentative, vulnerable.

Starting anew after a drought is a cathartic process of fire and heat. The elements of purification — for brilliant diamonds and precious metals, are the same for elements of artistic creation.

At first, one begins with muted tones of deep and light blue then there are splashes or bright colors — pink, red, orange. The colors emerge from deep within the heart. A burst of inspiration flows — to paint, to write, to compose, to create again.

New colors ignite the imagination and stir the dormant passion.

Dawn will wash across the once dark velvet sky with pastel streaks of yellow gold. It is the radiance of the rising sun.

“Transcendence to dreamscapes”

“My inner journey continues

As I explore the timeless world of dreams

And the joyous colors of life.

In the silence of my heart,

I listen to the poetry

And symphony of nature.

In the realm of the spirit,

I discover infinite variations

Of the mind’s recurring visions of the future.

Nature’s images I capture as abstract prisms

And transcendent impressions.

Until a new panorama of Dreamscapes unfolds,

Reflecting a fascination with the nuances of light — radiant and luminous,

Impressions of timeless vistas

Blend with memories of the future

And déjà vu images of the past.

The inner journey evokes a poetic

symphony of abstract visions,

serenity in solitude, cosmic emotions

and the moods of life.

My flights to the transcendental real

Are rare glimpses of luminescence and infinity.

Life’s Dreamscapes these are,

Owing to Sun, the radiant source.

To diptychs of the Sun.

To Cell, the basic unit.

To mandala and squares

Settling on Arches.

As in sunrise over blue mountains

or orange sky, or blue-orange sea.

Rising, shining, setting

The cosmic cycles of dreams:

Earth, sea and sky…”

Artist’s statement by way of verse for “Life” Dreamscapes series 2007 for Chroma Text Reloaded 2007, CCP.

(Special thanks to Krip Yuson)

Impact Hackathon 2020 seeks to support innovative solutions to pressing social challenges

By Patricia B. Mirasol

Impact Hub Manila (IHM) brings back its Impact Hackathon this year in the virtual space to find and support digital innovations for current social challenges.

“Last year, I had a dream: to provide the same support we’ve been doing here and bring that outside,” said Ces Rondario, founder and CEO of IHM, a social impact incubator and network of entrepreneurs and changemakers. “We wanted to find a way to decentralize stuff we were doing here in Manila and contribute to countryside development.”

The second Impact Hackathon aims to find innovations for social challenges amid the pandemic. Set to run from August 17 to 21, the virtual event will concentrate on five themes: climate change, education, food and agriculture, health and wellness, and smart cities.

TIMELINE AND ACTIVITIES

Participating teams are expected to create minimum viable products by the end of the hackathon. Winning ideas will be incubated by IHM and its partners, who will also support the scaling of the projects to ensure impact and sustainability. Winners will take home over US$100,000 worth of prizes, including access to IHM’s incubation program and its global network of experts and entrepreneurs.

Learning sessions will serve as a platform for discussions and network-building among participants, mentors, and partners.

The hackathon will culminate with a festival titled “2050 Fest,” in which experts, industry leaders, and collaborators come together for panel discussions and the announcement of winners.

The timeline is as follows:

July 1 Opening of registration portal

Aug. 17 Opening program

Aug. 18–21 Hackathon proper and learning sessions

Aug. 22–23 Jury deliberation

Aug. 24 “2050 Fest” culmination program

Aug. 25 Announcement of national winners

Teams are advised to have someone who can pitch and effectively tell the story behind their solution.
Malcolm Tan of Technicorum Holdings Pte Ltd., one of this year’s hackathon partners, also suggested looking into international and inclusive solutions. “Don’t be just restricted by geographic location. Look beyond your borders.”

Ms. Rondario shared that they are in talks with telco partners and are looking into providing Internet support for the participants. “We want to make this as accessible as possible.” She also hopes to see more women joining the event.

SOCIAL INNOVATION CATALYST

Impact Hackathon is part of Impact 2050, a multi-year program designed by IHM to create large-scale economic impact through cultivating the Philippine startup and innovation ecosystem.

Partners from Impact Hackathon 2019 like the Quezon City government, Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Asian Development Bank, and KMC will be back to support this year’s hackathon along with new collaborators such as the Office of Senator Francis Pangilinan, iProcure, Unifinity, Salesforce, Technicorum Holdings Pte Ltd., Multisys Technologies Corporation, and TrueDigital among others. Ms. Rondario likewise mentioned the support of the Department of Agriculture, National Economic and Development Authority, Department of Trade and Industry, Department of Information and Communications Technology, and the Department of Science and Technology.

For more details, go to impact2050.com. Interested participants can register at impact2050.com/impact-hackathon.

Google pulls 2,500 China-linked YouTube channels over disinformation

Google says it has deleted more than 2,500 YouTube channels tied to China as part of its effort to weed out disinformation on the video-sharing platform.

The Alphabet-owned company said the channels were removed between April and June “as part of our ongoing investigation into coordinated influence operations linked to China.”

The channels generally posted “spammy, non-political content,” but a small subset touched on politics, the company said in a quarterly bulletin on disinformation operations.

Google did not identify the specific channels and provided few other details, except to link the videos to similar activity spotted by Twitter and to a disinformation campaign identified in April by social media analytics company Graphika.

The Chinese Embassy in the US didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment. Beijing has in the past denied allegations of spreading disinformation.

Disinformation seeded by foreign actors has emerged as a burning concern for American politicians and technologists alike since the 2016 presidential election, when Russian government-linked actors pumped hundreds of thousands of deceptive messages into the social media ecosystem.

Many have spent the past four years trying to avoid a repeat of 2016, with companies like Google and Facebook issuing regular updates on how they’re combating online propaganda.

The bulletin also mentioned activity tied to other countries, including Iran and Russia. — Reuters

Facebook purges ads for illegal wildlife in SE Asia as online trade surges

YANGON — An ad showing a civet cat cowering in a cage being offered for sale on Facebook was just one of hundreds that the social media giant has removed in a crackdown on Southeast Asia’s illegal wildlife trade during recent weeks.

“Not too wild, not too-well behaved. If interested, call…” the seller wrote on the post, using an account in Myanmar, a major source and transit point for the trade in wild animals.

Facebook has a ban on the sale of animals on its platform.

But, in the five months through May 2020, a report seen by Reuters showed World Wildlife Fund researchers had counted 2,143 wild animals from 94 species for sale on Facebook from Myanmar alone.

The vast majority of posts—92%—offered live animals, including birds of prey, while gibbons, langurs, wild cats, and hornbills were in high demand.

Wildlife charities said more than 500 posts, accounts, and groups were taken down in April and July after they alerted Facebook, which said its staffers remove content that breaches rules as soon as they become aware.

“We are committed to working with law enforcement authorities around the world to help tackle the illegal trade of wildlife,” a Facebook spokesperson said.

‘INCREASING IN EVERY COUNTRY’

Campaigners say the advent of zoonotic diseases like the novel coronavirus, which is suspected of having jumped from animals to humans, has not quashed demand from buyers.

Southeast Asia is a major hub in the multi-billion dollar global wildlife trade and, according to monitors, sellers are increasingly using social media due to its massive reach and private chat functions.

“It’s increasing in every country,” said Jedsada Taweekan, a regional program manager for WWF, adding that the volume of wildlife products sold online had approximately doubled since 2015.

Myanmar came under fire in recent weeks over reported plans to allow captive breeding of about 175 threatened species including tigers and pangolins. Naing Zaw Htun, a senior forestry department official, told Reuters social media had become “one of the major drivers of the wildlife trafficking,” and the aim of the captive breeding plan was to reduce poaching.

Fighting the illegal online wildlife trade poses a serious challenge for governments across the region, where many national laws lag behind, said Elizabeth John, senior communications officer for TRAFFIC, a non-government organisation.

She said Facebook had been “very proactive in trying to address the online trade” but faced a “considerable logistical challenge” monitoring posts.

A study by TRAFFIC published in early July found more than 2,489 ivory items for sale across Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam on Facebook and Instagram, which is owned by Facebook.

TRAFFIC said 557 out of 600 posts, groups and profiles subsequently flagged to Facebook were removed. WWF said four Facebook accounts and seven groups, each with thousands of members, were removed in response to their research in Myanmar.

The company says it uses a combination of technology and reports from NGOs and others to detect and remove content.

Relying on tip-offs isn’t good enough, said Michael Lwin, founder of Myanmar-based tech start-up Koe Koe Tech. “Social media platforms, in general, need a more systematic response,” Mr. Lwin said.

After the cloud, the edge is computing’s next frontier

by Patricia B. Mirasol

We are in the cloud-computing era. Many of us already use cloud-based services like Dropbox, Gmail, Office 365, and Slack, even as more cloud-powered services like the soon-to-launch Xbox Game Pass Ultimate are being developed for our benefit. 

The next frontier after cloud computing is edge computing—or computing that’s done at or near the data source instead of relying on the cloud in one of the many data centers spread all over to do the work.

Self-driving cars and robotic surgery demonstrate how edge computing works. Instead of relying on a data center in, say, Singapore to process the coordinates of a self-driving car and its immediate environment in the streets of Manila, it makes more sense to have the processing capabilities as close as possible to where the car is. 

Edge computing delivers low latency (meaning there is minimal delay despite a high volume of data messages) and handles high bandwidth requirements where clients need to make very quick decisions. 

One product that capitalizes on edge computing is IBM’s Cloud Satellite. “Cloud Satellite has the ability to take a piece of public cloud functionality and bring it as close as possible to the customer. Rather than having a cloud service sitting in Singapore, Japan, or Sydney, you’re taking some of the cloud functionality and bringing it to the Philippines, so you can effectively deploy in the Philippines rather than connecting back to the public cloud,” said Gajun Ganendran, Chief Technology Officer and Presales Leader of IBM Cloud Platform Asia Pacific. 

Apart from transportation and healthcare, the technology has practical applications in sectors such as telecommunications and travel. Ditto for regulated industries like banking and finance that may have requirements on security and data sovereignty (the concept that data may be subject to the laws of more than one country; occurs when data is stored digitally with a cloud service provider and may be stored overseas).

Since vendor lock-in is a challenge that many clients face when they adopt public cloud technology, IBM is making it more accessible through OpenShift, Mr. Ganendran said. OpenShift is an open, automated, applications-based platform by IBM subsidiary RedHat. Using such a platform gives the clients the ability to break away from vendor lock-in requirements.

IBM Cloud Satellite will be available later this year.

India widens China app ban to cover more from Xiaomi, Baidu

NEW DELHI — India has banned some mobile apps of Chinese companies such as Xiaomi Corp. and Baidu Inc., three sources told Reuters on Wednesday, in New Delhi’s latest move to hit Chinese companies following a border clash between the neighbors.

India in June outlawed 59 Chinese apps for threatening the country’s “sovereignty and integrity,” including ByteDance’s video-sharing app TikTok, Alibaba’s UC Browser and Xiaomi’s Mi Community app.

Another ban was imposed in recent weeks on about 47 apps which mostly contained clones, or simply different versions, of the already banned apps, the sources said.

Unlike its June move, the government did not make its latest decision public, but there are a few new apps that have made it to that list, including Xiaomi’s Mi Browser Pro and Baidu’s search apps, the sources said.

It wasn’t immediately clear how many new apps have been affected.

India’s IT Ministry and the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi did not respond to a request for comment. China has previously criticized India’s decision to ban the apps.

A spokesman for Xiaomi in India said the company was trying to understand the development and will take appropriate measures. Baidu declined to comment.

A ban on the Mi Browser, which comes pre-loaded on most Xiaomi smartphones, could potentially mean the Chinese firm will need to stop installing it on new devices it sells in India.

Xiaomi is India’s top smartphone seller with close to 90 million users, according to Hong Kong-based tech researcher Counterpoint.

The bans are part of India’s moves to counter China’s dominant presence in the country’s Internet services market following a border clash in June between the two nuclear-armed neighbors in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed.

India has also made approval processes more stringent for Chinese companies wanting to invest in the country, and also tightened norms for Chinese companies wanting to participate in government tenders. — Reuters

Facebook, Twitter pull Trump posts over coronavirus misinformation

Facebook Inc. on Wednesday took down a post by US President Donald J. Trump, which the company said violated its rules against sharing misinformation about the coronavirus.

The post contained a video clip, from an interview with Fox & Friends earlier in the day, in which Mr. Trump claimed that children are “almost immune” to COVID-19.

“This video includes false claims that a group of people is immune from COVID-19, which is a violation of our policies around harmful COVID misinformation,” a Facebook spokesman said.

A tweet containing the video that was posted by the Trump campaign’s @TeamTrump account and shared by the president was also later hidden by Twitter Inc. for breaking its COVID-19 misinformation rules.

A Twitter spokesman said the @TeamTrump account owner would be required to remove the tweet before they could tweet again.

The Trump campaign accused the companies of bias against the president, saying Mr. Trump had stated a fact. “Social media companies are not the arbiters of truth,” said Courtney Parella, a spokeswoman with the campaign.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said that while adults make up most of the known COVID-19 cases to date, some children and infants have been sick with the disease and they can also transmit it to others.

An analysis by the World Health Organization of 6 million infections between Feb. 24 and July 12 found that the share of children aged 5–14 years was about 4.6%.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. During a briefing at the White House, Trump repeated his claim that the virus had little impact on children.

“Children handle it very well,” he told reporters. “If you look at the numbers, in terms of mortality, fatalities… for children under a certain age… their immune systems are very very strong and very powerful. They seem to be able to handle it very well and that’s according to every statistical claim.”

It was the first time Facebook had removed a Trump post for coronavirus misinformation, the company’s spokesman said.

It also appeared to be the first reported instance of the social media company taking down a post from the president for breaching its misinformation rules.

Twitter has taken down a post retweeted by Mr. Trump pointing to a misleading viral video about the coronavirus, but left up clips of the president suggesting scientists should investigate using light or disinfectant on patients.

Twitter said those remarks expressed a wish for treatment, rather than a literal call for action.

It also left up a March post from Tesla Inc.’s outspoken CEO Elon Musk stating that “kids are essentially immune” from the virus.

Facebook has taken heat from lawmakers and its own employees in recent months for not taking action on inflammatory posts by Mr. Trump.

The company has previously removed ads from Mr. Trump’s election campaign for breaking misinformation rules, in that case around a national census.

It also took down both Trump posts and campaign ads that showed a red inverted triangle, a symbol the Nazis used to identify political prisoners, for violating its policy against organized hate. — Reuters

Startup entrepreneurs see opportunities in PH agriculture

By Mariel Alison L. Aguinaldo

The agricultural supply chain must be shortened, consolidated, and modernized, said agritech (agricultural technology) startup entrepreneurs.  

“Every time there’s a drop or any handling, you have to peel away the layers, and then that becomes waste… If you shorten the supply chain, you can greatly reduce your waste,” said Pierre Curay, co-founder and CEO of software-as-a-service provider InsightSCS, during a webinar on making local farming “pandemic-proof.”

In the Philippines, the agricultural system is fraught with middlemen, whose services increase the cost of produce. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, 14% of food is lost before it reaches the retail level.

Optimizing the supply chain entails collaboration and data consolidation among stakeholders, including farmers, traders, consolidation hubs, and logistics providers. Mr. Curay cited the supply chains in the fast-moving consumer goods sector as a model for agriculture.

“Everybody shares information. We know, at each point of the supply, when it will arrive, when it will get delivered, and when it’s going to be manufactured. That’s something that we need to have,” he said.

Entrepreneurs can modernize parts of the system through e-commerce channels that allow customers to buy produce, without having to leave their homes. 

“You could have your produce delivered within 30 minutes,” Joshua Aragon, founder and chief executive officer of Zagana, a platform that delivers produce door-to-door from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Agritech entrepreneurs Like Mr. Aragon are asking help from the government to collate and digitize relevant data, such as the consumption rates for different areas.

“Even if my company moved around 420 tons of goods in the past three months, that’s just a fraction of the consumption data that’s actually needed to drive production. There has to be some way so that we can go micro in terms of each barangay… just so we actually forecast what’s needed for every city and every barangay in this country,” said Henry James Sison, founder and chief farming officer of Agro Digital PH, an enterprise resource planning utility and service for organized farmers.

Philippines plunges into recession, the first since 1991

The Philippine economy shrank for the second consecutive quarter, officially entering recession territory, data by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed.

The Philippine gross domestic product (GDP) shrank 16.5% in the second quarter, the PSA reported earlier this morning.
The preliminary figure was lower than the 0.7% decline in the previous quarter and a reversal from the 5.4% growth in the second quarter of 2019.

This was the biggest contraction based on available PSA data. The second-largest drop was in the third quarter of 1984 when the economy posted a 10.7% decline.

The second-quarter result also put the Philippines into a technical recession—defined as the economy’s GDP posting two straight quarters of decline—for the first time since 1991.

The latest figure was lower than the median decline of 11% in a BusinessWorld poll of 17 economists conducted last week.

The country’s first-half GDP performance stood at -8.6%, way off the expected contraction of the government at 2.0-3.4% this year.

Gross national income—the sum of the nation’s GDP and net income received from overseas— posted a 17% decline in the April-June period compared to 4.9% growth in the 2019’s comparable three months. — Marissa Mae M. Ramos

Agricultural output edges up in Q2

Agricultural output rose 0.5% in the second quarter, thanks to growth in crops and fisheries sectors. — BLOOMBERG

By Revin Mikhael D. Ochave

THE country’s agricultural output picked up slightly in the second quarter, driven by growth in crops and fisheries sectors, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said on Wednesday.

The PSA said the value of production of the farm sector — which contributes about a tenth to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and a fourth of jobs — grew by an annual 0.5% in the April to June period from -1.4% seen in the same period in 2019. It was also an improvement from the -1.7% in the first quarter, which was revised from the initial -1.2% reported last May.

For the first half, agricultural output contracted by 0.6%.

“Production increases were noted for crops and fisheries during the period. On the other hand, livestock and poultry posted decreases in outputs. At current prices, the value of agricultural production amounted to P439.8 billion. This was 4.6% higher than the previous year’s record,” the PSA said.

Glenn B. Gregorio, director of Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) said the second-quarter result, despite being positive, must be taken with a grain of salt.

“Despite the expected contraction due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the positive growth, albeit at 0.5%, is a good sign as it points to the need for the agriculture sector not to just simply ‘weather the storm’ but ensure that it provides enough food for everyone for the long haul,” Mr. Gregorio said in an e-mail.

LOWER TARGET
Even with the improvements seen in the second quarter, Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar said they are now targeting 1.5% agricultural output growth for the entire year..

“But with this pandemic, reaching our (original) 2% growth target for the year is difficult. We hope that we can at least reach 1.5%. If the situation permits and the country’s agricultural sector will continue to work hard, combined with the help of our farmers, fishers, and the agriculture business sector, we will almost reach 2%,” Mr. Dar said in a virtual briefing.

However, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the Agriculture department should still strive to achieve the original 2% annual growth target.

“I leave this challenge to Secretary Dar and the Department of Agriculture (DA): you must fulfill the target of an annual growth rate of at least 2% for the agriculture sector. This is needed to keep ahead of the country’s annual population growth rate, which is estimated to be around 1.4% in 2019 based on the Philippine Statistics Authority data. The steady growth of our agriculture sector is crucial to achieving stable food prices for all Filipinos,” Mr. Dominguez said in a speech at a DA event.

BRIGHT SPOTS
Crops output, which accounted for over half of the sector’s total production, grew by 5% in the second quarter, as palay and corn production jumped by 7.1% and 15.4%, respectively. For the first six months of 2020, crop production went up by 1.1%.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Monetary Board Member V. Bruce J. Tolentino said the 7.1% growth in palay production may be attributed to the positive impact of the DA’s Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) program.

“However, rice prices increased 10.1% in the second quarter of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019, most likely due to the transport and logistics constraints arising from the lockdowns imposed due to the pandemic,” Mr. Tolentino, former deputy director-general of the International Rice Research Institute, said in an e-mail.

For Rolando T. Dy, executive director of Center for Food and Agri-Business of University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P), the second-quarter result was not a surprise.

“The country’s palay production is up, plus our rice stocks are well supplied with imports, while hog and poultry production are down,” Mr. Dy said in a mobile phone message.

Mr. Dy also noted the increase in local corn production during the quarter was surprising because its peak season is during the third quarter.

Fisheries output edged up 0.9% in the April to June period, accounting for 16% of total agricultural output. However, fisheries production slipped 0.7% for the first half.

Pampanga State Agricultural University professor Roy S. Kempis attributed the improvement in the fisheries sub-sector to the National Government’s efforts in opening up the economy despite the pandemic.

“The opening up of the economy made fishing grounds in the seas and fish areas accessible. More fish could now be caught and/or produced,” Mr. Kempis said in a mobile phone message.

Meanwhile, the country’s livestock production, which contributed 17.3% of total farm output, fell 8.5% in the second quarter. Hog production slipped 5.2%, while cattle and carabao production dropped 29.5% and 26.5% respectively.

“With the rising prices in meat, this was a result of the consequential decline in production especially on pork due to the closure of pig farms and operations brought about by the African Swine Fever (ASF),” Mr. Kempis said.

The country’s poultry sub-sector, which accounted for 13% of total agricultural output, also slid 4.7%. Chicken and duck production both declined by 7.8%.

“In chicken, oversized dressed chickens abound in markets may be a consequence of the delaying release of production from 28 to 32-35 days. This may have happened because of the limited or restricted operations of restaurants and carinderias,” Mr. Kempis said.

UA&P’s Mr. Dy said the agriculture sector may be able to sustain growth into the third quarter, although it will be minimal.

“The stricter lockdowns across the country are hurting demand, coupled with many Filipinos with no jobs and no income. This will result in less food demand,” Mr. Dy said.

Mr. Kempis said the agricultural output growth may be better than 0.5% in the third quarter.

Meanwhile, SEARCA’s Mr. Gregorio said the country’s agriculture sector still has much work to sustain the growth for the rest of the year.

“May I rally for more technological innovations, such as tunnel ventilation technology, to support the swine and poultry sector to allow them to bounce back with its production for the rest of the year,” Mr. Gregorio said.

“There is also a need to support the government in its efforts to control and eradicate ASF, among other challenges the livestock sector is facing,” he added.

The government is scheduled to release second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) on Thursday (Aug. 6). Agriculture typically accounts for not more than 10% of overall economic output.

Performance of Philippine Agriculture

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