Duterte assures public all is well, calls for stop to ‘sinophobia’
Credit to Author: Ma. Reina Leanne Tolentino, TMT| Date: Mon, 03 Feb 2020 16:30:54 +0000
PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte assured Filipinos on Monday night that “everything is well in the country”, a day after the first death outside China from the 2019 novel coronavirus was reported in the Philippines.
In a briefing, Duterte said that “everything is well in the country. There’s nothing really to be extra scared of that coronavirus thing. Although it has affected a lot of countries…one or two in any country is not really that fearsome.”
Health Secretary Francisco Duque 3rd confirmed on Sunday that a Chinese man died of the 2019 n-CoV acute respiratory disease.
The fatality was a 44-year-old man who was the partner of the Chinese woman who became the country’s first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus.
In the same briefing on Monday night, Duterte called for a stop to “sinophobia”.
“China has been kind to us, we can only also show the same favor to them. Stop this sinophobia thing about…”, he said, adding in part that “It happened in China…At least the first. Iyon lang. But that is not the fault of anybody. Not of the Chinese. Not of the Filipinos.”