From Omicron to ‘Odette’

It is quite saddening that another tragic calamity spoils the otherwise joyous Christmas season ahead of us. Our celebratory mood for this week is literally dampened by the killer waves of typhoon “Odette.” The tropical cyclone unleashed her fury and left a trail of destruction while passing through the Visayas and Mindanao regions. In a matter of 24 hours, the swathe of devastation in all the affected provinces were counted in terms of lives lost and multi-million pesos worth of damage in both private and public properties, not to mention crops destroyed.

There is every reason for us Filipinos to celebrate a better Christmas this year compared to 2020. It was the past year when we had the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic coming in surges. The graphical presentation of the pandemic-related cases being monitored by the Department of Health (DOH) clearly showed our country went through wave after wave of COVID-19 surges in a span of 20 months. Hopefully this time around, the dramatic reduction of COVID-19 cases all over the Philippines will continue and this downtrend will be sustained.

In fact, the DOH reported yesterday the lowest so far daily additional confirmed COVID-19 infection cases at 168. This brings the total confirmed COVID cases at 2,837, 719 all over the Philippines while additional 10 deaths pushed to 50,794 the total number of COVID-related fatalities.

However, yesterday’s DOH tally could be a case of artificial decline of daily COVID cases. This is because 24 out of 300 molecular laboratories failed to submit test results to the DOH.

However, the latest COVID-19 mutation called as Omicron variant is again threatening our exit from pandemic woes. A third confirmed case of Omicron was detected from a returning Filipino from Qatar, but had traveled also to Egypt. Fortunately, there is no local transmission yet detected from any of the three Omicron cases since their close contacts turned negative. According to the DOH dashboard as of Dec.18, the Philippine Gnome Center has been able to sequence and detect 630 cases of foreign variants and that 496 of them were Delta variant that have local transmissions here and the rest were Alpha (originating from the United Kingdom); Beta (South Africa); Gamma (Brazil) and Lambda (Peru).

Experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) have found out the Omicron variant is much more transmissible than the Delta variant that originated from India. Countries mostly from Europe like The Netherlands, Denmark, France, Italy, UK and even the United States and Canada have either restricted entry or closed down anew their borders due to Omicron-induced rise anew of COVID cases. A number of these Omicron-affected countries have re-imposed the mandatory use of face masks, ramped up booster shots while some even mandated anti-COVID vaccinations to all their citizens.

For all the faults and criticisms heaped upon the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID), the gradual and calibrated downgrading of the hard lockdowns and community quarantine restrictions to stop the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic paid off well for the Philippines. As the policy-making body on all COVID-related issues and matters, the IATF provided President Rodrigo Duterte with the crucial considerations and the over-all picture of the situation nationwide.

These IATF policy recommendations apparently served very well President Duterte in all his decision-making process. Albeit not all of the IATF policy recommendations were approved but some were, in fact, reversed if not set aside even at times in the past

In the final reckoning, however, we are now all seeing the results of the so-called “whole of government” approach in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. For almost a month already, the DOH has reported three-digit COVID-19 cases per day. Yes, it still goes up a little bit but in three-digit still and goes down again the next day.

We had seen the worst of the pandemic when we had five-digit COVID-19 cases per day for almost several months this year. The highest was recorded on Sept.11 when we had 26,303 cases that day. And the worst part of this pandemic was that period when our hospitals in both government and private medical facilities were almost overwhelmed by admissions of patients with severe COVID-19 infections and complications.

While we have hurdled those dire periods of the past pandemic surges, “Odette” gatecrashed our borders with impunity. As of press time yesterday, the Philippine National Police (PNP) reported 375 “Odette” related casualties who died from drowning to being buried in landslides.

Not being callous on the tragedy brought by “Odette,” its name sounded like “oh-death” on people who escaped Omicron, but died from this tropical cyclone.

President Duterte went out his way to personally inspect and visit the people in the hardest hit towns in Bohol and Cebu over the weekend. Speaking to them in Visayan dialect, the Chief Executive admitted to them: “I’m worried about – you know, it’s Christmas time, people are happy and we have this one after another. I hope not. It will dampen the spirit of the people during Christmas time.”

Being a former Davao City Mayor for 23 years, the President explained, he could very well relate with the people’s needs and laments whenever calamity struck them. He obliquely apologized that certain administration candidates in next year’s elections tugged along with him: “I’m not campaigning here but since we’re here to be with you in your time of need… It’s really painful to go through something like this.”

From Omicron to “Odette,” the optics on the pandemic to calamity rhetoric and theatric of candidates running on the May 9, 2022 national and local elections have not so much changed. Looking at the landscape left behind by the “Odette” onslaught, we see the same traditional, old political antics of these candidates trying very hard to squeeze every brownie points for their election bids.