Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Most
patients infected with the virus will have mild to moderate respiratory symptoms and will
recover without needing specific treatment. Some, on the other hand, will become critically
unwell and require medical assistance. Serious sickness is more likely to strike the elderly and
those with underlying medical disorders such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic
respiratory disease, or cancer. COVID-19 can make anyone sick and cause them to get very ill or
die at any age.

The Philippine government has reacted forcefully. It has placed the country's capital under de
facto lockdown or, as President Rodrigo Duterte euphemistically put it, "increased community
quarantine" in reaction to the prospect of a coronavirus epidemic outbreak.

Several countries attempted, if unsuccessfully, to 'flatten' the COVID-19 epidemic curve so that
health systems were not overburdened in the early months of the pandemic. In response to the
pandemic threat, public health strategy incorporated epidemiological and socioeconomic
concerns. The success or failure of these programs exposed the government's strengths and
weaknesses, as well as the vast range of societal injustices.
Though the government began to implement various health regulations and lockdowns, it failed
to solve the problem and instead created new ones, such as job losses, an insufficient supply of
support to the locals, and corruption. Budgets for citizens were allegedly tampered with by
some political figures, resulting in misunderstandings and issues between citizens and the
government.

As national governments implemented large-scale "blanket" policies to control the pandemic,

local government units (LGUs) are considering granular policies as well as real-time
interventions to address differences in local COVID-19 transmission dynamics due to
heterogeneity and diversity in communities. The fight between the government against COVID-
19 became constant and is still going on to void the nonstop effects of the pandemic to the
citizens.