Survival of the fittest?

It’s been over 100 days of quarantine in the Philippines and we are officially one of the countries with the longest lockdowns to date. You would think that we have made significant headway in the battle against the coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19. However, that is unfortunately not the case. For a country that has had some of the strictest lockdown measures, we are still facing a dangerous upward trend of cases with no real end in sight.

Unfortunately, the government can’t sustain the people in lockdown indefinitely. It was expected that businesses would be asked to reopen and people would slowly come out and find a way to make it work despite the presence of the virus, all while following strict safety measures. While I completely understand the need to jumpstart the economy, where does that leave us in our battle against the disease? Back to square one?

Most other countries in the world that have slowly reopened and tried to get life back on track did so after seeing a decrease in COVID cases. This decrease signaled that their efforts were working. These efforts included mass testing, contact tracing, quarantine positive cases, and policies enacted to ensure the prevention of local transmission. In some cases, stopping the influx of foreigners also helped curb the curve.

Sadly in the Philippines, it seems we only truly did the lockdown part without the rest of it. We remained indoors for several months, but our testing capabilities only increased a little, our specifically set quarantine locations were not utilized, and our coming-out-of-lockdown guidelines were lax. In many ways, we have been remiss in truly battling the virus on all fronts, and now we are left with no shield as we go out and try to restart life again.

What does that mean for Filipinos? A very dangerous and uncertain future in the short run and the long run – I hate to think, is it survival of the fittest? Have we just followed in the footsteps of the United States and have thrown up our hands hoping to build herd immunity? I hope not. Because while that is one strategy, it’s uncertain and will cost us many lives, while taxing our already burned out frontliners.

Honestly, at this point, I can’t blame Filipinos for needing to go out and work. We need to earn. Not everyone received ayuda during the lockdown period. Businesses needed to reopen to survive and the economy. Despite measures to reopen, we are looking at a very bleak future. It was important to be able to get people back to work. However, it’s equally important to retain safety measures lest we end up right back where we started.

There were several guidelines put into place before the launch of the general community quarantine (GCQ). Some I was not agreeable to, such as forcing seniors to stay at home, while others were important to help curb the spread of the disease through the mass spread of people (and potentially asymptomatic carriers). Children were to remain indoors, masks were to be worn at all times, companies were required to rapid test employees at work, and people weren’t meant to travel for non-essential purposes like leisure.

Unfortunately, three weeks plus into GCQ and a lot of these guidelines have not been properly implemented. People are meeting up and visiting friends and family members, only a handful of companies have provided rapid testing to their employees, and there are no stringent implementation guidelines in place or ways to assure they are being followed. There are rules, but if these are not implemented, why bother having them in the first place?

We all know that fighting this pandemic requires everyone’s commitment, but what do we do when people have just grown tired and impatient in general and are in a rush to hurry back to their lives? It seems so wasteful to have gone through over 100 days of hardship for it to go down the drain because we could not be disciplined. Does the government have to step up their efforts? Absolutely. However, this does not mean that we should throw caution to the wind and pretend this isn’t happening. Because it is happening and we need to be aware. In a recent international study, the Philippines ranked last as the safest place to be during the COVID-19 outbreak and it’s not hard to see why.

Over the past few days, we’ve seen 900 new cases and then 400 new cases. Our numbers are increasing daily, and you may say that it’s because of more testing, but that’s not the only reason. Saying that is following in Trump’s footsteps of “if we don’t test, then we’d have really low numbers.” The truth is the numbers will continue to go up as the virus circulates more and more, especially through the silent asymptomatic carriers.

During the GCQ alone we have seen aggressive barangay lockdowns as cases dangerously begin to rise again. Areas in Bicutan and Taguig are back on ECQ and Cebu has gone back to the strictest form of quarantine as cases spiked and the healthcare system was pushed to the point of being overwhelmed. We all need to do our part before this begins to happen in more and more areas again.

So what can we do? We can continue to push for mass testing, follow-up and pursue the government’s pending actions regarding beefing up testing, contact tracing, and quarantine locations for positive cases, as well as their long-term plans and programs. If and whenever possible, we must try to limit outings and travel to essentials – work, grocery, medical – and only when necessary. We are suffering now, but hopefully, if we all work together we can emerge faster and safer in the future.