On my way home Friday, I saw many commercial establishments still open even at past 11 p.m., and they had a lot of customers.
The restaurants and bars have bounced back, across all income levels. There are crowds at roadside ambulant goto and barbecue carts, pares establishments without air conditioning, fast-food outlets, casual dining and high-end restaurants at five-star hotels. New cafés and bakeshops catering to all income levels are sprouting all over, and people are flocking to them.
At the commercial areas on my way home Friday, I passed by several market stalls where men were cutting up massive pig carcasses late into the night. Pork outlets seem to have mushroomed – in wet markets where the meat is sold fresh, and in stand-alone shops where frozen meat is stocked in upright display freezers.
The malls are full again; children of all ages are out with their parents, grandparents and fur babies.
There are some reminders of the lingering COVID threat, starting with facemasks, which many still wear even in dining establishments. Some beggars hold out boxes instead of their hands for alms.
But overall, people seem ready to put COVID behind them and celebrate the holidays, from Christmas to New Year’s, pre-pandemic style.
* * *
Families and friends from different households are getting together again without worrying about infection. Overseas Filipino workers are back in droves, many of them for the first time since the COVID lockdowns, and enjoying family reunions.
The Catholic Church is undoubtedly happy over the full return of in-person masses. At the Saint Joseph Parish in Las Piñas, renowned for being the home of the Bamboo Organ, there was a large crowd milling around the commercial stalls set up within the church compound late Friday night. The trees were all lit up with Christmas lanterns. Nearby, new restaurants and bars were enjoying brisk business.
The personal service industry is also bouncing back, including spas for massage and the mani-pedi salons.
On Saturday afternoon I shed some of my COVID paranoia and had a facial at a mall near my home, for the first time since the lockdowns in March 2020. I used to have facials every month. This time it’s in preparation for our gradual return to in-person interviews for One News’ “The Chiefs” at the Cignal TV studios.
As of yesterday, I showed no symptom of Omicron infection, and I enjoyed the company of family and friends. While I’m still singing Justin Bieber’s “Ghost” and missing loved ones claimed by COVID, there was joy at our Christmas gathering.
* * *
People in many other countries stopped wearing masks months ago. But even in these countries, there have been reports of people still suffering from a sort of COVID post-traumatic stress disorder, who are unable to resume their pre-pandemic Christmas celebration routines.
At a mall near my home, a rotund Caucasian was hired to be Santa Claus, seated in a red chair under a giant Christmas tree. Only a few kids, however, sat on his lap to make a Christmas wish. Maybe Filipinos are not familiar with this Santa Claus tradition. The P250 fee, with two free stuffed toys (one going to charity), might have also been a disincentive. Some parents, however, must have also feared having their child catch COVID from a stranger playing Santa Claus.
Experts keep reassuring us that the situation is different in China, which is seeing a massive COVID surge courtesy of the most infectious Omicron subvariant to have emerged so far, BF.7.
In financial hub Shanghai, people particularly youths were urged to stay home and avoid large gatherings during the Christmas weekend.
The surge began after Beijing, in response to widespread protests against its zero-COVID policy, lifted all restrictions earlier this month and ended contact tracing and mass testing.
The true state of the pandemic in China has now become impossible to track. Analysts merely base assumptions on the admissions and deaths reported in swamped hospitals and overloaded crematoriums. There are widespread reports of medicine shortages, and offices forced to scale down or stop operations because too many employees have called in sick.
* * *
Last Saturday, China’s national health authority reported only 4,128 daily symptomatic COVID cases, with no deaths. Beijing counts only deaths directly caused by COVID, instead of the global norm of including deaths induced by a COVID infection.
Bloomberg News, on the other hand, estimated that nearly 37 million people might have been infected in China in just one day since zero-COVID was scrapped. London-based health data analytics firm Airfinity, for its part, placed COVID infections in China at over a million and deaths at more than 5,000 every day.
There are fears of a bigger surge by January, when the Chinese celebrate their biggest holiday, the Lunar New Year. Some analytics modeling pointed to deaths post-zero-COVID hitting from 1.3 million to 2.1 million in that country.
The Philippine tourism industry had hoped for a boost during the 2023 Lunar New Year of the Rabbit, which falls on Jan. 22. But with the Chinese now voluntarily locking themselves down as COVID rampages across their country, the hopes have been dashed. Those with pandemic PTSD, on the other hand, worry that the Chinese will track in more Omicron BF.7, of which four cases have now been detected in the Philippines.
The Catholic faithful have been storming the heavens to put an end to the COVID threat. Judging from reports of celebrations across the country yesterday, the prayers are working, helped along of course by vaccination and safe health practices.
For many in our country, Christmas 2022 has certainly been much better than the two Christmases past. And it looks like it will be a joyful New Year.