Is there really no end to this pandemic?

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in

a dramatic loss of human life around the world, posing an unprecedented challenge to
public health, food systems, and the workforce. The pandemic's economic and social
impact is devastating: tens of millions of people are at risk of falling into extreme
poverty. COVID-19 has had a severe impact on Asia early on, as well as several Pacific
Island countries, due to its proximity and various links to China. According to Asian
Development Bank, as of October 5, 2020, the total number of patients in the region has
surpassed 8.3 million, with over 140,000 deaths. A year into pandemic and we have
coped up a lot. Several vaccines have been created and vaccinations are on-going. A
large number of occupations have continued operating such as tourism. A lot of schools
have opened again. We can see that Asian countries are slowly going back to how they
were before the pandemic. On the other hand, Philippines is exceptional. Despite
having the region's longest and most strict lockdown, the Philippines' coronavirus cases
have now surpassed 120,000, surpassing Indonesia as the region's largest outbreak.
The country is making no progress in containing the outbreak nor show any signs of
improvement. This paper examines the reasons why the Philippines is still suffering
more amidst the pandemic than other Asian countries. J

One of the reasons could manifest itself as how effective of a leader a country
has. The Duterte administration was slammed way before the pandemic and continues
to be criticized now because of their terrible handling of the pandemic. Filipinos are the
most critical of their government's response to the COVID-19 outbreak among
Southeast Asians. According to a study by the ASEAN Studies Centre, a research
institute focused on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The study
conducted an online survey from November 18, 2020 to January 10, 2021, and the
survey resulted that 17.9% of Filipinos “strongly disapprove” of the Duterte
government’s pandemic response – the highest strong disapproval rating among
Southeast Asian countries. Together with the 35.8% of Filipino respondents who
”disapprove” of the government handling, a total of 53.7% of Filipinos who participated
in the survey thumb down the present administration’s response to the health crisis.
Even on social media applications, a lot of people have been expressing their
disappointment and have been questioning the administration’s decisions. As a
comparison, Vietnam have an astounding 96.6% approval on their government’s
response on COVID – 19.