Planet Earth has been learning about Covid-19 ever since this highly contagious respiratory disease that killed so many was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020. The knowledge led to mobility restrictions in many countries including severe lockdowns in the Philippines, not to mention a global race on who could...
Tag: COVID-19
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Has Southeast Asia reached a post-pandemic stage?
By mid-2022, governments worldwide had begun easing up on the severe Covid-19 restrictions and regulations imposed on their peoples and opening their countries to visitors. These moves were intended to ease the debilitating impact of Covid-related policies on the economies and social fabric of virtually all countries. Most economies suffered recession, companies went bankrupt, supply...
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Coming home to Manila in the pandemic: inward journeys
SYDNEY—“This is your captain speaking. We shall soon commence our descent into Melbourne …” I felt a lump in my throat. Every year when I visit my daughter here, I make a side trip to Victoria’s capital to see a dear friend from college. The pandemic paused the practice, and now, after three years, I...
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Asean’s divisive responses to the Covid-19 pandemic
The responses of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) as a regional grouping to Covid-19 have been divisive, unclear, nonconsultative, impromptu, and driven by divergent policies, leading its member-states to control the pandemic individually and independently of each other. These are the assessments of observers among think tanks, media outfits, and independent researchers. A...
