The pandemic dampened the previous New Year’s Eve revelry. Health officials said financial constraints brought by COVID-19, mobility restrictions as well as heightened awareness of health safety issues helped bring down fireworks-related injuries between Dec. 21, 2020 and Jan. 1, 2021 by a record 85 percent from the previous New Year celebration.
There were 340 fireworks-related injuries reported in the New Year revelry before COVID-19 hit the country. The number fell to a record low 49 for the same period in the last revelry as authorities also ramped up the campaign to discourage the use of firecrackers.
SARS-CoV-2 was still rampaging across the globe last Christmas, however, with the first peer-vetted COVID vaccine, made by Pfizer-BioNTech, just starting to be administered in the United Kingdom. Vaccination in the Philippines went off to a slow start only in March, as the Alpha and Delta variants fueled a deadly summer surge.
This Christmas, with about 43 percent of the population now fully vaccinated and the booster program underway, new COVID cases have fallen, allowing restrictions to be eased and more economic activities to resume. Families and friends separated by lockdowns for nearly two years were able to reunite and share Christmas meals.
With people able to celebrate the holidays, the New Year revelry is expected to be livelier this year. Health officials are reminding everyone to stick to safe merrymaking as they note an increase in firecracker-related injuries in the run-up to New Year’s Eve compared to last year.
As of yesterday morning, the Department of Health had recorded 19 firecracker-related injuries. While the number is still 67 percent lower than the five-year average of 58 cases from 2015 to 2019, the DOH says the 19 injuries are 58 percent higher than the cases recorded last year.
Production, sale and use of fireworks are regulated by law and by an executive order signed by President Duterte in June 2017. The fireworks industry, centered in Bulacan and struggling to survive, has made an effort to upgrade product quality to allay safety concerns and compete with imports. But more effort is needed to enforce product standards and safe fireworks use.
In the last holiday revelry, the DOH reported that 84 percent of the injuries were caused by illegal fireworks such as piccolo and boga or improvised cannon while the rest were due to legal fireworks. The fireworks industry itself should want to bring down injuries and even achieve zero cases. Ringing in the New Year need not start with a harmful explosion.