Letting down our guard

A couple I’ve known since my teenage years, who settled in the United States after college graduation, caught COVID last month. The husband survived; the wife had a heart attack and died. She had no history of cardiac problems and death came suddenly.

Both were anti-vaxxers in their 60s – highly vulnerable to COVID infection, especially with the contagious Omicron “stealth” sub-variant BA.2 spreading in the US.

That’s what health experts keep emphasizing: Omicron may produce mild or no symptoms at all among the vaccinated and boosted. But for vulnerable sectors, it can still be just as deadly as the original Wuhan coronavirus or its lethal variants Alpha and Delta.

Dr. Rontgene Solante, infectious disease specialist at San Lazaro Hospital, emphasizes that even in highly vaccinated countries such as South Korea (81 percent inoculation rate), Omicron BA.2 is causing a spike in infections.

While Omicron can cause only mild symptoms that can disappear in as short as three days, Solante warns of “long COVID,” which can lower immunity as vaccine efficacy wanes, causing brain fog for example, or aggravating pre-existing health problems such as cardiac and respiratory afflictions.

Based on Our World in Data figures, COVID cases in the Philippines have been reassuringly low since the start of those large campaign rallies, with positivity rate also low. In the seven days through April 2, the average daily infections nationwide stood at 329, according to the global case tracker.

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The government aims to fully inoculate 80 percent of the population, or about 90 million Filipinos including minors. With 65.8 million of the eligible population fully vaccinated as of the weekend, this means there are still about 24.2 million people out there who have yet to get their anti-COVID shots. We can’t be sure if the low number of new cases in the past weeks is mainly because few people bother to get RT-PCR tests these days, and no longer rush to hospitals if symptoms are mild.

Solante says the low numbers despite the superspreader campaign rallies, if real, may be due to “hybrid immunity.”

He explained that this is created by the Omicron-fueled surge last January, with the infections giving the afflicted a degree of natural immunity, combined with high vaccination rates in Metro Manila and several other areas.

Vaccine efficacy is waning, however, and many of the vulnerable who need boosters aren’t getting the shots. The rallies are also being held in areas with low vaccination rates.

So health experts are watching out for a possible COVID spike by May or June, and yes, more deaths especially among the vulnerable sectors – the elderly and the immune compromised.

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Over the weekend I visited a mall near my home – the extent of my outdoor trips on my days off these days. I was glad to see that while foot traffic was up substantially from the lockdown days, people were still wearing masks and observing physical distancing, even in the food courts.

As we can see from news reports, however, this is not the case at campaign rallies. And even if the young and healthy don’t catch whatever Omicron mutant reaches the country, there are still millions among us who are vulnerable to critical infection and death.

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported last week that COVID was the third leading cause of death in the country last year, after ischemic heart disease and cerebrovascular diseases. The figure cited was 105,723 – about 13.8 percent of the total 766,126 registered deaths, and double the 42,258 reported by the Department of Health (DOH).

Of the 105,723 deaths, 74,008 were “virus identified” or confirmed by the DOH to be linked to COVID, collected through a surveillance system.

Solante explained to “The Chiefs” on One News last Thursday that this was because the PSA recorded even deaths due to probable COVID, as indicated in the medical report signed by local health officers in a death certificate.

Still, even the 74,008 confirmed COVID deaths are a whopping 700 percent increase from the 9,316 registered in 2020, when COVID was the 14th leading cause of death in the country.

At the height of the Alpha and Delta surges last year, there were many reports of people being rushed to emergency rooms with COVID symptoms who subsequently died of heart attack or pneumonia. I have the misfortune of personally knowing people who died this way so I think the PSA report gives the more accurate picture of COVID’s tragic toll in our country.

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I myself developed post-COVID pneumonia – the first time I suffered the affliction in my life – and had a dry cough for months after I tested negative for the coronavirus.

Having gone through COVID nightmare, I still avoid face-to-face meetings these days. I keep my mask on, wash or disinfect my hands regularly and maintain physical distancing.

And I worry about reports of fresh COVID surges driven by Omicron in several European countries, China, South Korea, Hong Kong and now the US.

The World Health Organization has lamented that the surge is partly because COVID safety protocols such as masking have been junked too quickly.

It’s been reported that during the 1918 flu pandemic that killed 50 million people worldwide, more people died in New York City in a fourth wave of infections in the third year than in the first two years, with several other US cities also suffering serious fourth waves.

In the third year of that influenza pestilence, Americans had reportedly grown weary of pandemic restrictions and had lifted masking, distancing, limits on public gatherings and the closure of schools and churches.

In our case, the government has not lacked in reminders that it’s still too early to ditch masking, distancing and hand hygiene. But we’re increasingly seeing this happening especially in campaign gatherings.

Health frontliners undoubtedly have seen more COVID deaths than me, so I can understand why they continue to worry about a fresh spike in infections resulting from those large gatherings – at campaign rallies, in public swimming areas – wherein people behave as if the pandemic is over.

If reports are accurate, a syndicate has even emerged, offering rent-a-crowd to candidates. That kind of crowd won’t care about COVID health safety protocols.

The Commission on Elections said violations of health protocols would constitute election offenses. But the Comelec is a largely toothless body, so people will just have to look out for themselves and their loved ones.

We’re still in a pandemic, and people can’t be reminded enough that COVID continues to debilitate and kill.