Philippine hospitals are struggling with a shortage of protective gear, manpower and testing capacity, as are medical facilities around the world. At least 13 doctors have died as of Tuesday and the Philippine Medical Association estimates that over 5 per cent of health workers are currently under quarantine due to Covid-19.

The country’s ambassador to China, Chito Sta Romana, confirmed a statement by the Chinese embassy in Manila that Beijing would send an expert team to the Philippines to provide technical advice on epidemic prevention and control as well as treatment protocols.

Sta Romana said the team was made of up of “experienced doctors and public health officials who specialise in infectious diseases”, but could not say when they would arrive.

An infectious disease doctor who spoke on condition of anonymity said the Chinese medical team would only give advice.

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“There was an offer to see patients but it was rebuffed because of local laws on practice,” he said, referring to a law that bans foreign doctors from practising medicine in the Southeast Asian nation.

Philippine foreign secretary Teodoro Locsin Jnr on Saturday tweeted that the Department of Health was “blocking their arrival”. His tweet, now deleted, had said “Don’t piss me off. Let them in.”

Health secretary Francisco Duque told local media that Locsin took down his tweet after hearing that the department was preparing hotel accommodation and translators for the expert team.

According to an ethnic Chinese businessman who is a member of a foundation involved in the visit, the team was supposed to have arrived on March 27. It will comprise doctors, nurses and researchers from hospitals and disease prevention agencies in Fujian province who specialise in areas such as infectious diseases, emergency medicine and integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine.

An estimated 1.2 million ethnic Chinese call the Philippines – which has a population of 107 million people – home, with many tracing their ancestry to Fujian province.

The businessman, who declined to be named, showed This Week in Asia a screenshot of the team’s name list, which included an official from Fujian province’s United Work Front Department, the controversial Communist Party department responsible for promoting its influence around the world.

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Beijing has dispatched teams of medical experts to countries struggling with a surge in Covid-19 cases, including Iran and Italy, and has also donated testing kits and other medical supplies.

The Philippine health department apologised over the weekend for comments made by undersecretary Vergeire that some of the kits donated by China had yielded only “40 per cent accuracy” and could not be used.

The Chinese embassy in Manila had rejected the suggestions, and shared a mobile text message supposedly from Duque to Ambassador Huang Xilian that thanked the Chinese government for the test kits.

Vergeire also issued a correction to her earlier statement, and said she was referring to “another brand” of test kits from China that a private foundation was going to donate.

Political risk analyst Ramon Casiple, who chairs the Institute for Political and Electoral Reforms, said at this point in the Philippines’ coronavirus fight “any help is welcome”.

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The Philippines has locked down its main island of Luzon – where about a third of the population lives, and where 70 per cent of economic activity takes place – for the past two weeks, resulting in supply chain disruptions and millions of poor families losing any source of income.

On Tuesday, finance secretary Carlos Dominguez said the government was planning a stimulus package to help companies and the poorest households.

“This planned stimulus package is already being crafted and will be responsive to the uncertainties of the situation,” Dominguez said in a statement, without elaborating. “At this point, nobody knows how bad this pandemic will get or how long it will last.”

Senate defence committee chair Panfilo Lacson warned that some people “are eating corn fungus to stave off hunger” and “if the executive does not act with dispatch, we may have a serious social problem to face”.

Communist Party of the Philippines founding chairman Jose Maria Sison agreed with Lacson but added, “it is therefore just for the broad masses of the people to be outraged and demand collective action against Duterte, his servant generals and the Department of Health because of their incompetence, corruption and stupidity.”

However, Senate President Vicente Sotto urged the public to “cut [Duterte] some slack”.

Additional reporting by Bloomberg