By Randee Sausa July 3, 2020 (Photo from PIXABAY) The pandemic that people fighting today, the Corona Virus Disease-2019 (COVID-19...
July 3, 2020
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| (Photo from PIXABAY) |
The pandemic that people fighting today, the Corona Virus Disease-2019 (COVID-19) is like a test for the 'big one,' an analyst said.
Ben Kritz, an analyst, told Sentinel Times in a chat interview that "COVID is like a test for the 'big one', or a worse epidemic, or a typhoon the scale of [Super Typhoon] Yolanda hitting the Metro, or whatever," when ask if Covid-19 is bigger than the big one or earthquake.
He said "It's really exposed a lot of serious flaws in the way governments do things, the structure of the world economy, everything. Can you imagine if this were as deadly as something like, say, Ebola, that kills half of everyone it infects?"
On July 1, the Department of Health (DOH) listed a new batch of 999 COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, with the total number of infected rising to 38,511.
This is the third day in a row that health officials recorded around a thousand new infections. The DOH announced 985 new cases on June 29 and 1,080 on June 30.
Of the added figures, 595 were detected in the last three days, while 404 were part of the validation backlog.
The DOH also added 205 to the tally of recoveries, which is now at 10,438. Four more died, for a total of 1,270 deaths.
For his part, Director Renato Solidum of Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PhiVolcs), however, also said in a text message to Sentinel Times that "if we look at it from the Philippine perspective especially for Greater Metro Manila area, the physical effects, number of deaths and direct damage and indirect consequences of large magnitude earthquake, an earthquake would be quite significant."
Studies indicate that at least 30,000 death, hundreds of thousands injured, hundreds of thousands of damaged houses and buildings, in Metro Manila alone can be caused by a Magnitude 7.2 earthquake. Around 50,000 deaths can occur if we include other surrounding provinces.
Since Metro Manila is the seat of governance, finance, business, and education, then these sectors will also be affected.
"I've been surprised at how much damage it's caused, honestly," Kritz added.
He said that "it's scary because we haven't done too well. A lot of countries haven't. And I guess we'll have to see if we learned something."
Moreover, Kritz also said that a pandemic like this usually takes about two years to run its course, if you look at past pandemics. We're only 6 months into this one. What's going to happen in the next 18 months?
Solidum also added that COVID-19 has affected significant government and business operations in Metro Manila and this will be the same for the Big One.
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