I currently live in Singapore. The government's initial strategy has been limiting visitors, quarantining returning passengers and extensive contact tracing. This worked well initially, where most of new cases are imported.
However, in the last few weeks there are more and more new cases that are "unlinked", namely tracer was not able to find link to existing cases / clusters. This suggests that there is probably a community spread going on. What makes it worse is that the initial success has made the general populace complacent. Most people go out, gather, and commute as normal; the majority of them do not wear mask. This and the lack of a lock-down set the current stage of "outbreak 2.0".
For the Philippines, they figured out the true way to not have a official pandemic.
You can't have a pandemic if you just don't test people.
They're just picking up the slack now and recognizing the severity of the situation.
I don't find that a credible explanation.
First, the medical centers, particularly in the major cities are not that bad. They would have noticed.
Second, there is enough political fighting that if the administration was attempting to suppress the reporting Duarte's political enemies in both government and media would have been getting the leaked to both news and social media if the doctors were not doing it themselves.
The only thing that I can think of for the Philippines is that all the infections and deaths were perhaps misidentified as dengue but if that were the case I would think there would have been a bit more about how bad the disease was this year. I've not seen that claimed anywhere.
Both saw early cases and then seemed to see things level off. Some suggested it was the sensitivity to heat and humidity plus, for Singapore, quick and decisive actions to limit the spread.
Both are now looking almost like they are at the start of their outbreak.
Any clues as to why or if this largely refutes the seasonal claims (not sure about Singapore but Philippines is officially in Summer season).