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Lockdown policy proves effective in preventing COVID-19: Philippine President

The strict lockdown measure has proven effective, helping the Philippines prevent 1.3 million - 3.5 million infections, said Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.
Lockdown policy proves effective in preventing COVID-19: Philippine President ảnh 1Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. (Photo: Reuters)

Hanoi (VNA) – The strict lockdown measure has proven effective, helping the Philippines prevent 1.3million - 3.5 million infections, said Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.

In his annualstate of the nation speech on July 27,  Duterte affirmed the country's lockdown - one ofthe longest and most stringent lockdown orders in the world - helped the Philippines basically control the disease and curbthe number of COVID-19 cases.

Schools would not reopen until scientists develop a vaccine against COVID-19, he said.

However, Duterte acknowledged that the government was late inimplementing the SARS-CoV-2 virus testing programme.

According to the President, his country nowhas 93 official laboratories capable of detecting the SARS-CoV-2 virus nationwide, and thegovernment aims to conduct 1.4 million screening tests by the end of July.

The Philippine Ministry of Health reported 1,657 new COVID-19 cases in the sameday, lifting the total in the country to 82,040, including 1,945 deaths.

Meanwhile, in Indonesia, statistics on the Ministry of Health's website showthat with 1,525 newly-confirmed cases of COVID-19, the total number of infectionsin the country has increased to 100,303 as of July 27. The country recorded 57more deaths, bringing the total number of fatalities to 4,838./. 
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