‘Late and slow motion’: where the Philippines’ pandemic response went wrong

After the Philippines recorded its first death from Covid-19 on February 1 last year, President Rodrigo Duterte assured Filipinos: “Everything is well … there is really nothing to be scared of that coronavirus thing.”The victim – the first person to die of the disease outside China – was a 44-year old man visiting from Wuhan, the Chinese city where the first novel coronavirus infections were reported. By then, countries around the world including Russia, Japan and Australia had closed or were…

Read the original article at South China Morning Post