‘Zoom-bang Gabi’

Nicanor Austriaco has a goal amid all the suffering in this pandemic: to have a merry Christmas 2020.

It’s not unexpected of him: he is, after all, a Roman Catholic priest. But Father Nic is not alone in this optimistic goal.

I’m hearing a growing number of people saying they are determined to make Christmas 2020 a joyous one.

This, of course, is a challenge in the time of COVID, especially for the enterprises and activities that will remain suspended or restricted for the entire October, while Metro Manila continues to be under general community quarantine or GCQ. There are still a considerable number of sectors that are deemed to be high risk for COVID transmission, starting with mass transportation.

Father Nic, a molecular biologist and visiting biology professor at the University of Sto. Tomas and an OCTA Research fellow, said there was a spike in COVID cases this mid-September in Metro Manila.

Working together with UST physics professor Bernhard Egwolf, Father Nic uses real-time mobility data to modify an epidemiological model developed recently by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to simulate the COVID pandemic in Metro Manila.

Father Nic used this data to point out that the spike occurred around five days after the government reduced by a mere 10 percent over three days the physical distancing requirement in public transport, from one meter to 0.75. The mobility data, he said, clearly showed a spike of 300 to 400 new cases daily in Metro Manila.

Even with the retention of GCQ for another month, the number cruncher in the OCTA team, University of the Philippines mathematics professor Guido David, is projecting COVID cases nationwide to hit 380,000 to 410,000 by the end of October.

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There is, however, no stopping Christmas – and the holiday rush.

Pre-pandemic, the holiday-related consumption spike could already be felt by October. This time, COVID-battered livelihoods are keeping demand down. The only upside here is that with tepid demand, there are no Christmas price hikes. Or at least that’s what the Department of Trade and Industry is seeing.

My guess is that even with drastically reduced purchasing power, people will continue shopping, but will go for more affordable substitutes for their usual holiday stuff. The gift-giving will continue, with less demand for luxury items. Health products, IT gadgets and other educational items will be the preferred giveaways.

In fact this trend is already seen these days. Gift baskets contain fresh fruits together with multivitamins, wet wipes, masks and face shield. Wines have been replaced with alcohol – the real one, at least 70 percent isopropyl alcohol.

And people still want to festoon their homes with Christmas décor. So there will still be a holiday shopping rush – meaning a crush of people that local government units and police must manage.

UP political science professor Ranjit Rye of OCTA Research is in fact warning that despite the flattening of the COVID transmission curve, he’s still seeing a future surge in cases.

“People can be overconfident and so that’s the worst thing we can do now – underestimate the virus and overestimate our achievements,” Rye told “The Chiefs” on OneNews / TV5 last Monday night, hours before Malacañang announced the one-month extension of GCQ in Metro Manila and several other places. “The surge is going to come.”

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Even the Catholic Church is worried about transmission.

Father Nic is fine with the 30 percent limit on the number of people allowed to attend masses inside churches.

“One of the challenges of the church is there’s a lot of vocalization. So there’s a lot of singing, there’s a lot of talking, which means droplets are being spread everywhere,” he told us. “So that’s why throughout the world, religious gatherings are particular hotspots for super spreaders.”

During mass, people are exposed to others for about an hour – way beyond the minimum 15 minutes that it takes to catch the COVID virus. The compromise, Father Nic says, is to allow the faithful to attend mass outside churches, with distancing still strictly observed.

With more churchgoers expected at this time of the year, however, Father Nic is closely watching COVID trends in religious worship. Sto. Domingo Church in Quezon City, for example, will be celebrating the Feast of Our Lady of La Naval de Manila this Sunday.

“I want to see how that plays out, what will happen there,” the Dominican Father Nic said. “They’re preventing people from coming, but I’m concerned that (people) will still come.”

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The OCTA fellows must be relieved that Metro Manila, epicenter of the COVID contagion in the country, will remain under GCQ for another month.

People, however, are hoping for quarantines to be relaxed with the approach of Christmas. What are the conditions that would allow for a shift to modified GCQ?

Rye said there should be two weeks of sustained decline in COVID cases, with the positivity rate – the percentage of those tested who turn out positive – going down to just five percent. New cases should be no more than 1,000 a day. And of course capabilities should be sufficiently ramped up for testing, contact tracing, isolation and treatment.

OCTA has no projections on the number of cases if Metro Manila would be eased to modified GCQ beginning Oct. 1. David explains that this is because the team doesn’t know what MGCQ for the NCR might look like. But he says “it’s very possible that we’ll have a surge,” and it is important to maintain the decreasing infection trend.

Father Nic looks on the bright side, noting that the COVID caseload “is dropping dramatically.”

Rye agrees with Father Nic that we should all prepare for Christmas 2020. “There has to be a goal for all our hardships,” Rye says.

The OCTA team, however, is not ruling out the possibility that this December, the faithful may have to observe the dawn mass tradition or Simbang Gabi through streaming service. David calls it “Zoom-bang Gabi.”

Father Nic is unfazed.

“As a priest, I am very excited for Christmas, too, and I want Christmas to be as near normal but as COVID-safe as possible,” he told us. “We look forward to Christmas. We’re hopeful people.”