Each soldier to donate portion of salary for COVID-19 efforts
MANILA, Philippines — All members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) will be donating parts of their salary to the government's fight against the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), AFP chief General Felimon Santos Jr. confirmed Wednesday morning.
Santos himself will donate P10,484 of his own salary while those in the lowest ranks, including airmen, apprentices and privates, will donate P100 each.
The fund is set to raise around P17 million and is expected to go to the Office of Civil Defense.
"Each regular member of the AFP—from the highest ranking general to the lowest ranking personnel—will donate an amount based on a certain percentage deduction from their respective base pays for the month of May," Santos said in a statement on Wednesday.
Santos said this was "in commiserating with our kababayan who were unfortunate to contract the disease; and as a manifestation of full support to government."
On Tuesday evening, the Department of Health recorded 104 new cases of the virus along with 14 new deaths and 11 new recoveries, bringing the total number of active COVID-19 cases in the country to 3,503.
Just as mainland Luzon entered its fourth week under enhanced community quarantine—which has severely restricted movement and has largely left the vulnerable grappling with uncertainty—the country's COVID-19 task force announced that the lockdown would be extended until April's end.
“Our heart goes out to our people. Seeing and feeling their hardships daily from the checkpoints, quarantine centers, and relief distribution sites we man, we commit to them our resolute efforts to win over this pandemic; we are one with them in keeping the faith that together we will hurdle this test of the Filipino’s indomitable spirit,” the AFP chief said. — Franco Luna
If you believe you have come into possible contact with infected patients, you may be directed to the proper office of the Department of Health for advice through the following lines: (632) 8651-7800 local 1149/1150 or (632) 165-364.
You may also opt to call the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine at (02) 8807-2631/ 8807-2632/ 8807-2637.
Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.
The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.
In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
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