The Concerned Doctors and Citizens of the Philippines (CDC PH), a group composed of professionals and experts from the medical, health, business, financial, and research industries, is mounting an information campaign called, “Flatten the Fear.”
According to CDC PH, it is not enough that government agencies are only focused on “flattening the curve” — a now-familiar catch-all phrase referring to managing the COVID-19 infection rate so as not to overwhelm medical treatment facilities throughout the country.
“We agree that it’s important to contain COVID-19 infections,” Dr. Iggy Agbayani, an Orthopedic Surgeon, said. “However, it is also important to manage the level of fear that people are experiencing in many communities throughout the country; and by spreading the right medical information, we can flatten the fear and help end the lockdown.”
Social and economic impacts of panic and fear
Mr. Nonoy Oplas, author, columnist and an economist, says that fear and panic have already led to many cases of dangerous, irrational behavior towards health workers who face discrimination, and patients and recoverees who are evicted by lessors or have their houses forcibly boarded up by barangay officials.
Furthermore, the resulting anxiety and reduced mobility from lockdowns has led to the closure of thousands of businesses, the loss of millions of lives, and an unprecedented rise in hunger and poverty rates in the Philippines, he said.
Pivot to preventive and early treatments
Dr. Homer Lim, a Geriatrician and Integrative Doctor, explained that with the medical knowledge accumulated over the past six months, the Philippines’ primary tool against the virus ought to be a national protocol for the prophylaxis (preventive) and early treatment of COVID-19 that reduces hospitalizations and saves lives.
Members of CDC PH who are highly-respected practitioners and researchers in the field of medicine, are asking to meet with the medical advisers Interagency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF).
Dr. Lim said that the CDC PH can provide many medical studies that show the effectiveness of zinc, vitamin D3, and vitamin C as part of an early treatment regimen that includes azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine (HCQ).
Data on effectiveness of HCQ
According to CDC PH, there have been hundreds of patients who have benefited from HCQ treatments.
These recoveries include about 400 high-risk COVID-19 patients who were treated by Dr. Jerry Jurado, a Filipino doctor in New Jersey, USA, using HCQ, azithromycin and zinc, with zero deaths.
Here in the Philippines, during the height of the pandemic, Dr. Homer Lim treated over 100 COVID-19 patients using the same protocols with great success.
CDC PH also cited a Newsweek article, “The Key to Defeating COVID-19 Already Exists. We Need to Start Using It”, by Harvey Risch, professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, that points to seven studies, all published after May 2020, reporting the efficacy of HCQ.
According to Risch, these seven studies involved hundreds of patients, including:
- 400 high-risk cases treated by Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, with no deaths;
- four studies that tracked some 500 high-risk patients, with no deaths;
- a controlled trial of more than 700 high-risk patients in Brazil that showed reduced risk of hospitalization with two deaths; and
- Almost 400 matched patients in France who had a reduced risk of hospitalization.
Evidence-based medicine works
According to CDC PH, by strengthening the preventive and early-treatment protocols of the national health system, government leaders will no longer need to choose between saving the economy or saving precious Filipino lives.
“With the good health of both our economy and our people assured, we will truly begin to heal as one,” the CDC PH concluded in an official statement.
(Full text of the CDC PH statement available at https://www.flattenthefear.ph/unity-statement/)
