April 1, 2020 -  Everyone – from our Prime Minister, public health officers and medical experts to politicians, radio and TV hosts, parents and friends –  tells us to wash our hands to prevent the spread of Covid-19.  Here are the reasons and effective ways to make hand washing a tool against Covid-19 from cdc.gov/coronavirus.  

The rapid spread of Covid-19 in the Philippines has been alarming. Everybody is doing whatever has to be done to contain the virus.    

(This is Part 4 of Dr. Pagtakhan’s column,  Medisina at Politika, on Covid-19)

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Tedros announced on March 12 this somber global moment: COVID-19 is a PANDEMIC! It is both a public health and a socio-economic global crisis. Affecting over 100-thousand patients and causing over 4-thousand deaths in 100 days, its geographic spread has reached all regions of the U.N. health agency, six continents and 114 countries. Indeed, COVID-19 is very contagious and rapidly transmissible from patient-to-patient, and has exacted a heavy toll on human lives.

As of March 8, Toronto Public Health (TPH) was monitoring 13 positive cases of the novel coronavirus or COVID-19 in the metropolitan area.

According to TPH, it is actively working with municipal and health partners to plan for the potential of the local spread of the virus.

Dr. James  Robb was a professor of pathology at the University of California San Diego. He was one of the first molecular virologists in the world to work on coronaviruses (in the 1970s). He was the first to demonstrate the number of genes the virus contained. Since then, he has kept up with the coronavirus field and its multiple clinical transfers into the human population (e.g., SARS, MERS), from different animal sources.

Filipinos in and outside their native country, including Canada, are particularly proud of one of their ancient traditions called bayanihan.

Bayanihan is a Tagalog word about how a community comes and works together to achieve a goal, often to help members needing assistance.

(This is part 3 of a column on Medisina at Politika by Dr. Pagtakhan. Part 2 appeared on the February 16, 2020 edition of CFNet.)

As of today, over 80-thousand patients from 29 countries have been diagnosed with COVID-19 – short for coronavirus disease that emerged in December 2019. Compared to the figures reported a month ago, these numbers represent over a hundred-fold increase in patients and more than a three-fold increase in affected countries. And over 2,700 patients had lost their lives since the disease began in early December 2019. ;

Some Catholic churches in the Philippines have found a new source of income to supplement the weekly offerings of their parishioners. They have established a columbarium. A columbarium or columbary as it is locally called is “a structure of vaults lined with recesses for cinerary urns” (those holding a deceased's cremated remains). Each niche can hold a number of cremation urns (up to 4). The niche faceplate, in granite, glass or brass, usually has an inscription engraved upon it with name, date of birth and date of death of the deceased.  

Early in January this year, an earthquake of magnitude  6.4 with maximum intensity of V11 (Very strong) devastated certain areas of Puerto Rico leaving 3.1 billion US dollars in damages and thousands of people homeless.

(This is part 2 of a column on Medisina at Politika by Dr. Pagtakhan. Part 1 appeared on the February 1st edition of CFNet.)

Filipinos overseas are encouraged to register for the Philippines’ forthcoming national elections to be held on May 9, 2022. 

Following the election of a federal minority government, the Liberals hope to translate election promises into actionable work plans for each of the federal ministries. In his mandate letters to each minister issued in December 2019, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau noted that “Canadians sent the message that they want us to work together to make progress on the issues that matter most…People expect Parliamentarians to work together to deliver these results.”

With the proposed federal ban on single-use plastics, many retailers have started transitioning to reusable food ware and encouraging customers to use reusable options such as bringing their own coffee mugs and containers, water bottles and cutlery. 

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is advising travellers from the Philippines not to bring pork or pork by-products.

 Most Filipinos in Canada are found in major urban centres, where many jobs and economic opportunities are found.

A new study shows that little if not zero progress has been made in reducing racism in labour market outcomes for visible ethnic minorities in Canada.