EDITORIAL - If not reason, then fear

As suspected by some, the numbers of people getting infected with COVID-19 daily are being underreported.

According to a representative of the Department of Health speaking before a congressional hearing last Tuesday, the figures they report to the public do not include how many infected individuals did not undergo swab testing.

There are some who will say there is no need to keep counting the numbers of people getting infected. That there is no reason to do so because it serves no purpose in the end and won’t be helpful at all. It will be like making up these fancy levels of lockdown status that will all seem like gobbledygook to the common folk.

We disagree. We understand that getting the figures right can be a challenge. There is no way they can determine the number of those who are not submitting themselves to swabbing. However, we also encourage the DOH to come up with daily figures as close to accurate as possible.

Why? For one, because we need to know how we are really doing in the fight against COVID-19 and its variants. While people with COVID-19 are not the enemy, knowing what we have to deal with is very useful information to our planners in terms of bed capacity, allocation of personnel and resources, among others.

For another, because we need to scare some people who are not taking this pandemic seriously. Yes, until now many Filipinos continue to take this very dire situation for granted or even deny it entirely.

Look around you, how many people can you see who are no longer wearing masks or not wearing them properly? How many are no longer keeping a safe distance from others? How many are going out of the house just for the sake of going out? In some instances some people have completely dropped their guard.

It is casual, reckless behavior that leads to the spread of the coronavirus.

If only for the purpose of scaring them straight, to jolt them back to the reality that we are still in a pandemic, that people are still spreading and getting infected by the coronavirus, that people are still getting sick and dying, that they need to get vaccinated, we need to show some people that the numbers are not going down anytime soon.

If reason can’t get to some of them, maybe fear will.