Indeed, Mr. Duterte said so himself at one point in his rambling speech. But, hearing this, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that someone was rushing to deploy the coercive arm of the state using as pretext a public health emergency whose risks and ramifications have yet to be fully explained to the public. I do not wish to be misunderstood: I happen to believe that the threat from this coronavirus is very serious indeed, and warrants the coordinated response of all domains of society.

But, the effect would have been different and reassuring if, after a brief introduction, the President had yielded the microphone to the health secretary and the team of infectious disease experts working with his department. They should have been allowed to explain in the clearest terms possible the scientific basis for declaring the urgency of a community quarantine.

By the same token, a credible spokesperson from the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, preferably a scientist, would have done an immensely better job of laying down the basic principles behind putting an entire city on community quarantine. Then it would make sense to ask someone in charge of enforcement—possibly the local government secretary—to explain the parameters of a Metro Manila-wide lockdown.

That’s not the way it happened at the press conference the other night, because someone in this government chose exclusively to project the optics of power, rather than give space to the voice of science.

In his two previous public appearances where he addressed the same topic, the President had tended to make light of the protocols that were put in place to protect him from infection. “I’m not afraid to die,” he kept saying, as though it was just his life, and not that of others, he would be putting at risk by choosing to mock the need for social distancing. This attitude certainly did not prepare the public for the month-long quarantine he would declare just a few days later.

It is now clear that the exact terms of such a draconian measure had not been thoroughly thought out. The initial guidelines were, if anything, sketchy, leaving the public to conjure dire images of the severe lockdown in Wuhan, China. Not even the resort to the more benign-sounding phrase “community quarantine” was enough to allay the ensuing public fear of finding oneself locked up indefinitely in one’s own home.

As one might expect under these circumstances, people instantaneously took action, seeing in the brief two days between announcement and enforcement a narrow window to do what they thought needed to be done. They went on a frantic buying spree, emptying the shelves of supermarkets, and swarmed bus stations, seaports, and airports in a frantic rush to leave the city.

In modern society, it is clear that a highly communicable disease like COVID-19 can, ultimately, only be defeated if science is given enough space to speak its truth. Unfortunately, the voice of the scientific community is all too often drowned out by the voices emanating from the political and other sectors of society. Under our present setup, the science community can hardly be heard above the din created by the political sector. It can’t even be heard by those in government except through the health secretary and the science and technology secretary, who may not have the gravitas and assertiveness needed to be heard in times like these.

When scientists defer to the requirements of politicians, or constantly beg for budgetary support for their research, or permit themselves to become the tools and mouthpieces of corporate interests, they lose not only their credibility but also their capacity to help solve the problems of humanity.

This certainly does not mean that science can or must perform its function in isolation from the rest of society. Not at all. It only means that it must have sufficient autonomy to do its work and produce findings that may be useful to society. Such autonomy needs to be institutionalized in the form of independent institutes and centers, assured of regular funding support, and protected from undue interference and pressure through appropriate legislation. Only by recognizing the necessity to respect functional boundaries can society move closer to solving its increasingly complex problems.

But Philippine society remains premodern in many ways. At no other time perhaps is this more evident than when, in the face of a hitherto unknown killer infectious disease, the President shows lack of appreciation of the limits of his office by taking on the specialized task of expounding on the nature of viruses and vaccines, and infectious diseases and pandemics. These subjects do not belong to the field of politics, and President Duterte is not a known expert on these topics.

It is certainly the function of government and of the political system as a whole to produce collectively-binding decisions aimed at protecting the public against the dangers of a public health emergency such as COVID-19. An example is the drastic move to place an entire city in quarantine. In this, government must defer to the findings of science, even as it strives to respond to the exigencies of the economy, education, law, religion, the family, etc. But, for the nation’s sake, let the experts speak.

Randy David

• Philippine Daily Inquirer / 04:50 AM March 15, 2020:
https://opinion.inquirer.net/128030/optics-of-power-vs-voice-of-science

Effect explosion and the coronavirus

Less than two months after Chinese authorities acknowledged the emergence of an infectious outbreak from an unknown coronavirus in the city of Wuhan in central China, the world is witnessing an explosion of effects never before seen in this century. The disturbance produced by this phenomenon is complex and difficult to predict. Society is reacting not just to the disease itself, but also to the separate responses of its differentiated domains. This is what is called complexity.

People’s lives are being disrupted and altered not just directly by the virus itself but even more so, indirectly, by the unpredictable ways in which the different segments of society are responding to the threat and risk that the disease poses.

National borders have been sealed. Flights to and from specified destinations have been canceled. Shiploads of holidaymakers have been prevented from disembarking at some ports until they are declared free from infection. Factories and schools in affected countries have been ordered closed. Global supply chains have been disrupted.

Tourist travel worldwide has ground to a near halt. Airlines and cruise ships, hotels and restaurants, have drastically scaled down their operations. Governments are pumping additional funds into their health systems. Places for quarantine are being designated even as medical protocols for the handling of large-scale outbreaks are being reviewed. States tell their citizens to avoid unnecessary travel. The public is advised to take precautions when going to shopping malls and other crowded venues. Economists see a massive contraction in global economic activity.

More insidiously, dormant and longstanding prejudices are activated as nations and various publics scan the horizon for races and cultures to blame for this modern pestilence. Existing conflicts are rekindled, and preventive measures trigger all kinds of misunderstanding among neighbors, friends, and relatives.

It is a scenario straight out of disaster movies.

Ideally, in a situation like this, the voice of science ought to prevail. Once scientists are able to offer a full characterization of this new pathogen and the disease it causes—its infectiousness, transmission, period of incubation, symptoms, lethality, prognosis and prevention, etc.—it then becomes possible to respond to its risks and challenges with more precision and sobriety.

But the response time of science is subject to many contingencies. Until its findings are independently and repeatedly confirmed, there will expectedly be many voices. Each one of these voices will find their own media platforms from which to disseminate their respective findings. In this regard, among society’s subsystems, the mass media’s resonance to catastrophes is perhaps unequaled. It is, after all, its business to be ever alert to what is new, to what is threatening, or to whatever keeps the world on tenterhooks.

We are talking here of the role of a global scientific community in providing information that could allay prolonged uncertainty and unease. In the face of an epidemic like the COVID-19, one wishes the World Health Organization could credibly represent the unified voice of medical science. Yet, being an affiliate of the United Nations, the WHO is inescapably mindful of the sensitivities of its member-states, and this is bound to constrain its ability to issue objective and timely advisories.

This is evident in its reluctance to declare a pandemic despite the fact that the virus, according to the latest reports, has killed 3,450 people and infected at least 100,000 in 92 countries. The world health body has been noticeably hesitant to call for travel and trade restrictions. It has been vocal in warning against overreaction and panic, even as it assiduously tells governments to activate their protocols for epidemics.

It is perhaps a testimony to the power of mainstream mass media, and indeed of the new social media, that most governments chose not to wait for the WHO to pronounce the existence of a full-blown pandemic before taking urgent measures to stop the coronavirus contagion from engulfing their nations. In this, government officials were themselves responding to the widespread public fear generated by media.

If the Duterte administration had not stopped direct flights to and from China, the airlines would have done so anyway, in response to concerns from their own crews. Except for the most stubborn and desperate among them, passengers would have, on their own, rebooked their flights, perhaps not so much out of fear of getting the virus as of being placed on quarantine at their destination.

For more than two weeks, the country’s health authorities basked in the illusion that we have successfully contained the spread of the virus on our shores. None of the cases being watched had turned out positive. Even so, many were skeptical about what exactly this meant. The virus could be out there, but the infections may have remained undetected simply because only a few of the potential cases were being tested.

Thus the first recorded local transmission of the coronavirus would likely be received not as an isolated case, but as a delayed confirmation of an under-reported contagion. Whether it is one or the other will be known in the coming days — if this is the same pathogen that shut down Wuhan, a city of 11 million, in less than a month. I dare not think how prepared we are for this virus.

Randy David

• Philippine Daily Inquirer / 04:50 AM March 08, 2020:
https://opinion.inquirer.net/127885/effect-explosion-and-the-coronavirus