Annimisery, not anniversary

Of all the anniversaries known to man, the first year milestone of COVID-19 can be called an Annimisery and not an anniversary. As we entered into the month of March, the talk of the town was declaring the entire Philippines under modified general community quarantine or MGCQ. People perked up from their year-long confinement, folks started talking about trips and rides while businesses looked forward to the resumption of operations first for movie houses and similar entertainment establishments.

But for reasons that have yet to be scientifically determined and proven, the number of active COVID cases and deaths reportedly shot up to a point that we are now the highest scorer in the Western Pacific region. So instead of celebrating with a positive anniversary we are observing the first annimisery of COVID-19 in the Philippines.

Whatever the real score may be, there is no denying that COVID cases went up from a low of 800 to a high of 3,300 in a day that has gone on for the past four days. Our knee jerk reaction and expectation is that lockdowns would soon ensue and that our current GCQ might slide down to MECQ. Some even feared the possibility of an ECQ this summer. Admittedly many people are confused and are having a hard time predicting or figuring out what the next move of government will be because, contrary to expectations, the government maintains that only granular lockdowns will happen alongside LGU-dictated curfews and no more Luzon-wide lockdowns or ECQs.

The problem, I believe, is that analysts simply operate on historical data or what happened in the past and expect much of the same to be done again. But things are not the same. Since March 2020 we have learned hard and useful facts about the COVID-19 virus. We learned the right way and the wrong way to treat or manage the disease. Government has learned that controlling the population in order to control the pandemic is a very expensive undertaking that ruins government finances and puts it deep in debt while destroying the economy and last, we learned that citizens ultimately need to experience, learn and equip themselves and become the real frontliners against COVID-19.

To begin with, back in 2020 most of us did not know what we were dealing with, not even the health experts. It required six months minimum to figure out how COVID spread, what COVID does to people and what was right and what was wrong in treating COVID cases. Intubation and respirators turned out to be deadly, delaying hospital or doctor visits turned out to give COVID-19 the deadly advantage to make a patient critically ill. We discovered that getting and surviving COVID-19 does not give you immunity.

One year later we actually now know about variants, “treatment options” which is why even when the case loads increased, the ICUs or critical care facilities are not compromised. Local governments have put up enough testing laboratories, prices have gone down for testing and this gives authorities enough hints or data where the enemy is.

So why are we seemingly back to square one? First we are dealing with two if not three or more COVID-19 variants that are reportedly multiple times more infectious or contagious. Given the government’s understandable inclination towards calm and caution, officials are being careful not to panic people with something they can’t see, much less comprehend. On top of that, our specialized laboratories such as the RITM and the Philippine Genome Center are so poorly funded they don’t have the necessary equipment, supplies and personnel to provide a thorough picture of where the different variants are and how they got there.

In terms of spread or transmission, we literally only have “ourselves to blame.” To the credit of the general population, we obviously behaved and observed health protocols during the high-risk events such as Christmas holidays and religious feasts. But anyone who has been traveling or moving around the country has surely observed how lax local authorities have been in the last two months, especially down at the barangay level.

While the IATF and Metro Manila mayors kept kids and the elderly at home, they were only effective in keeping people out of the malls and business areas where the IATF, city hall or the DTI could shut businesses down. But in many streets, plazas, offices and homes especially in the provinces, people were mingling and continue to walk around with no mask. Kids and teenagers ride bikes, walk about unmindful of the risk, fully convinced that there are no cases in their barrio! People already think of me as a snob or paranoid individual every time I tell people to keep their distance and please put on a mask. One vice mayor told me that they had to stop dance exercises in one of their parks and arrested individuals drinking and gambling in groups along inner alleyways or eskinitas! Whether it’s people who violated health protocols or people who chose not to say or do anything about people not wearing masks and social distancing, “we only have ourselves to blame.”

Yes, we are our brothers’ keeper as it says in the Bible and now we know that if we don’t act, we also suffer the consequences.

Aside from everything I’ve pointed out, it’s worth noting that another reason why the national government won’t revert to ECQ lockdown is because it costs so much money that the government can’t afford and does not have. Instead of borrowing another trillion pesos to feed “detainees,” we now have to fend for ourselves. We need to take care of our families, our community and ourselves. Freedom, as they say, comes with responsibilities. Do your part.

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