Thread by @FraseJonco

I understand your intentions. Good intentions aren't enough, however, especially if these are selective. In fact, good intentions alone do not solve the problems outright. This #COVID19 pandemic isnt't just about medicine, the lack of hospital beds, the
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https://twitter.com/megamomph/status/1241389404733599744

dearth of health workers, or the lack of resources. Therefore, your rejection of a mass test--at this time or even just in principle--because you dread the "deluge of the system" is unacceptable. Sure, we should first take care of those at the front line so that
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they won't fall ill and unable to carry out their duties--although this could be done side by side with widespread testing--but we can't just deprive the others outright of something that could save the lives of many (of course, not all) among them. We cannot
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let the others down just because they are perceived to be less productive members of society compared with, say, nurses, doctors, professors, epidemiologists, and/or politicians. You see, man is an end in himself. We cannot use man as a means to an
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end, no matter whose (here, I am embracing #Kant's categorical imperative). Biomedical ethics plays a big role in this situation, so are anthropology (on herd immunity, social mitigations, and behavioral modifications and rationality), psychology (counseling
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against perceived stigma among the patients), and other related intellectual and demographic disciplines. The important role of biomedical ethicists in hospitals and almost all medical facilities and laboraties as well as pharmaceutical companies has been
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sweeping the First World, followed by the poor nations over the past years. #UPDiliman is a Philippine pioneer in offering the biomedical-ethics course at the CSSP grad school in the early 2000s, but has since transferred this to #UPManila , although still
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in coordination with UPD's Philo Dept. (at least then; not sure now). Another factor to consider that would impact greatly in the fight against this pandemic is the government having a political will to deal with the problem from all angles and deploying all
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possible resourcres at its disposal--which has been absent from the onset of the new #coronavirus. We need to call out our political representatives, other elective officials, and the government in general. It's just the government that has the
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power to mobilize people, goods, and services on a massive scale. The #PHilippines isn't very lacking in know-how, technology, and resources to deal with the various problems besetting it. Whatever it is short of may be remedied through
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consultations, coordinations, and collaborations with the private sector and even their counterparts across borders. The government, led by the president, should have looked at the COVID-19 pandemic as a nontraditional security issue and
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securitized it, as it could threaten the survival of the citizenry and the sitting administration if left unattended. Securitization, in accordance with diplomacy and strategic studies, is when you put an issue/problem into an emergency mode, which, of course, calls
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for emergency solutions. Once the problem has been tackled and resolved the issue can then be put back into its normal status--which is called desecuritization. This securitization-desecuritization concept, as advanced by the European scholars
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in Copenhagen and modified by the Asian academics in Singapore, has been considered by security experts as a powerful and effective tool in identifying any existential threat to referent objects and resolving the problem at hand; in this ongoing health
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crisis, our government is the main actor that must use this tool. The argument that we must dread or be afraid of the deluge of the health-care system is a lazy way of thinking. It smacks of elitism (in the pejorative sense), abrasiveness, inefficiency,
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incompetence, and negligence. It could, thus, be likened to the #EJKs--which the ruling admin has espoused, thinking or believing that drug peddlers and users, especially the poor and uneducated ones, do not deserve rehabilitation and a second
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chance at life. What an elitist and, at the same time, a fiendish solution. Mass testing, random testing, cluster testing, regional testing--call it whatever we want to, administer it whatever way we can, but there really is a need to do the testing on a scale
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bigger and wider than what is being done now. We dread and fear the deluge of the system? This is tantamount to the government's defeatist attitude toward China's hegemony in our territorial waters and over our own government. The ruling admin should
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grab the bull by its horn and make available a more reasonable emergency fund, put up health-care facilities in public properties like schools, call in and organize health and medical professionals who are out of work, even medical and nursing students who
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could assist the doctors and nurses, ask donations from big corporations and the oligarchs, tell the taipans to lend their employees who are not on duty to help out. These people must be paid, however. There are many possibilities to tackle the
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problem. What is needed is a leadership equipped with a strong political will to carry out massive, decisive, and fast actions and solutions. There has been confusion, naturally, on the best efforts to deal with the pandemic. We can look to governments that have
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dealt with their epidemics minus authoritarian tactics. We need widespread testing, contact tracing, isolating the infected, and social distancing. There's no single way to fight the pandemic, thus, all measures must be combined to help defeat it.
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