De-escalation

Did the government rush the de-escalation to Alert Level 2? Lawmakers have different opinions.

The Pasay City government isn’t sitting around analyzing; it issued an executive order maintaining the ban on unvaccinated people from going out of their homes except for essential errands, even as the National Capital Region (NCR) and seven other areas were downgraded to COVID Level 2 beginning yesterday.

Other local government units (LGUs) are issuing their respective orders or ordinances, modifying the lifting of the restrictions.

Some quarters are also hoping that certain measures to lure holdouts to get vaccinated, particularly the no-vax, no entry in major malls, will remain in place.

The lack of uniform rules even within the NCR is emerging amid reports from Europe, where several countries are still battling a fresh wave of COVID infections and deaths, that the so-called stealth BA.2 subvariant of Omicron is even more transmissible than the highly contagious original BA.1 variant, with greater “immune-evasive properties” that are able to penetrate the defenses of even the fully vaccinated and boosted.

Some foreign health experts have warned that BA.2, which has been detected in the Philippines, could prolong the pandemic.

At the start of a new year in the lunar calendar, however, we allow ourselves to indulge in positive thinking and hope for the best.

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Last Monday, Lunar New Year’s Eve, the dragon-themed street lamps in Manila’s Chinatown were brightly lit, but Quintin Paredes road from Jones Bridge was nearly deserted. A few stalls remained open along Carvajal alley, selling round fruits and tikoy.

At least there was some life along Ongpin street. Chuan Kee fastfood near Binondo Church, whose upper floor Café Mezzanine is dedicated to firefighters, was full at 10:30 p.m.

Adjacent to the Chuan Kee building, people were busy preparing for what looked like a street party at the hotel reportedly built by Gerry Chua, a.k.a. Mr. Ube of Eng Bee Tin Chinese deli and Café Mezzanine fame. Maybe they were waiting for a fireworks display at midnight.

Throughout Ongpin, there were small groups of people strolling, buying tikoy, round fruits and good luck charms to welcome the Year of the Water Tiger. At 11 p.m., I started seeing fireworks. Yesterday, a holiday, the streets of Chinatown teemed with people.

With the easing to Alert Level 2, perhaps policy makers want to start the Year of the Tiger on a hopeful note, with reopening and the prospect that it will be permanent.

Beyond hoping for luck in a Tiger year, however, even the OCTA Research Group says COVID cases are truly falling, after that January surge driven by the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

Even if antigen tests are being increasingly done at home and positive results are not being reported to authorities, OCTA fellow Guido David bases his projections on the percentage of passengers who tested positive in antigen tests conducted in the light railway services.

Extrapolating on the test results, he says the downward trend is real, and “the worst is over” at least for the Omicron wave.

By Valentine’s Day, the University of the Philippines mathematics professor projects that daily cases can go down to lower than 500 in Metro Manila.

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Even certain health professionals, usually wary of the easing of restrictions, have cautiously given their nod to Alert Level 2. But they stress that COVID safety protocols must continue, particularly masking, physical distancing and hand hygiene.

Also important, especially since people are increasingly doing away with RT-PCR testing, is isolation when possible COVID symptoms emerge, or upon exposure to a COVID-positive person.

In highly vaccinated Metro Manila, there is some concern about the lifting of the no-vax, no ride policy. In interviews, several commuters have said they are fully vaccinated and are worried about being seated next to an anti-vaxxer.

Pulmonologist Maricar Limpin, head of the Philippine College of Physicians, also notes that the no-vax, no entry policy in several malls appears to have been one of the biggest incentives for persuading holdouts to finally get their shots.

On OneNews’ “The Chiefs” last Monday, Dr. Limpin also urged parents to wait until their children have been vaccinated before allowing the kids to return to malls and other indoor public places.

As reports from other countries battling the latest COVID wave has shown, Omicron is driving pediatric infections, and continues to kill especially the unvaccinated and immune compromised.

Kids need to wait just a bit longer; vaccination of ages 5 to 11 begins this Friday, while inoculation has been going on for ages 12 to 17. A 10-year-old boy I know registered online last Monday and received a text alert soon after from his local government unit in Metro Manila for his vaccination schedule.

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There is also concern about the lifting of facility quarantine for fully vaccinated foreign travelers even from non-visa countries experiencing a COVID surge. Omicron, now the dominant COVID variant in our country, has shown a strong capacity to infect even the fully vaccinated and boosted.

In the absence of an effective contact tracing system, the government is putting a lot of faith in the honesty of travelers in isolating at home upon arrival instead of heading straight to a party in Makati’s Poblacion district.

Even Tourism Secretary Berna Romulo Puyat, while elated over the reopening to foreign tourists, told us on The Chiefs that she would have wanted the doors opened initially to fully vaccinated travelers from the so-called green list countries. But she said health experts advising the government supported the shift in the rules.

Let’s hope they weren’t the same advisers who were in denial for a long time about an Alpha-driven surge last summer, until patients started dying in ICUs and even while waiting for admission outside overcrowded hospital emergency rooms, just five days after manifesting symptoms. As new cases and deaths galloped to alarming levels, the surge was finally acknowledged.

At the start of the Tiger Year, we allow ourselves the luxury of exhaling with cautious relief that COVID’s worst might really be over.