Inflexion point

The Christmas holidays, Lunar New Year celebrations, Black Nazarene and Sto. Niño processions are over, and so far, there has been no spike in COVID-19 infections.

This is not to say that the COVID threat is over. There were 9,604 active COVID cases nationwide as of Feb. 1 with the addition of 199 new infections, bringing the total to 4,073,454, according to the Department of Health tracker. DOH data showed that most of the infections, however, are mild, as indicated by hospital COVID bed occupancy at 17.9 percent. Total deaths stood at 65,802 since patient No. 1, a tourist straight from China’s Wuhan City died in the Philippines.

Because of this situation, no one is declaring that COVID has disappeared or become endemic.

The World Health Organization, during an emergency meeting last Jan. 27, did not lift its declaration of COVID-19 as a public health emergency of international concern. But health experts believe the WHO will lift the PHEIC in April.

“The committee acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic may be approaching an inflexion point,” the WHO said in a statement after the meeting. “(B)ut there is little doubt that this virus will remain a permanently established pathogen in humans and animals for the foreseeable future.”

The United States, where weekly new cases totaled 295,140 with 3,756 deaths as of yesterday, intends to lift its pandemic state of emergency by May 11.

And in our country, President Marcos reportedly no longer wants to extend the COVID state of calamity that ended in December 2022. Never mind if, as health officials have warned, it can affect the speedy procurement of COVID vaccines, including the next-generation bivalent shots. Maybe BBM is allergic to having anything tagged as a calamity, emergency or crisis in this country.

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In any case, DOH officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire says procurement of the bivalent vaccines donated by the COVAX Facility is still on track for arrival in late March, even without the state of calamity.

Vaccines that are not donated, however, will now have to be procured through competitive bidding, she says.

If procurement of vaccines covered only by emergency use authorization is affected, Marcos has noted that many people are no longer interested in getting additional vaccines anyway.

This seeming lack of interest, however, may be due to the fact that people are waiting for the bivalent jabs to arrive, since these are designed specifically against the new coronavirus strains – Omicron and its subvariants.

I know people who say they will wait for their bivalent shots before they fully return to their pre-pandemic routines. These are people who still wear masks when outside the home, strictly observe hand and respiratory hygiene, and at least avoid physical contact when socializing. They have self-administered COVID antigen testing kits at home.

Every event marked by large gatherings that passes without a COVID surge reinforces perceptions that the country has achieved some degree of herd immunity, through a combination of vaccination and infection.

Maybe Father Nicanor Austriaco of the OCTA group was correct in his positive take on the spread of the highly contagious Omicron beginning in December 2021. The microbiologist priest drew some flak at the time for saying that Omicron could prove to be a blessing in disguise, because so many infections could lead to herd immunity.

Omicron has mutated so much I’ve lost track of its subvariant alphabet soup. And there are people who want protection from those subvariants.

Some concern has been raised over reports that the bivalent shot developed by Pfizer-BioNTech poses risk of ischemic stroke among ages 65 and older, although there are indications that the risk is merely coincidental.

On One News’ “The Chiefs” last Wednesday, Vergeire stressed that the coronavirus still poses far more risk of causing critical illness and death than any COVID vaccine.

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Vergeire has become one of the most visible public officials throughout the pandemic. These days, the situation has eased enough for her to devote more attention to the many other health issues in the country.

One problem arising from the pandemic is the dramatic drop in the regular immunization program especially among children. Vergeire wants to reduce this gap ASAP.

Another priority is the full rollout of Republic Act 11223, the Universal Health Care law of 2019. From the start, limited resources meant the gradual rollout of the UHC over five years. The COVID emergency further slowed down the full rollout.

Apart from the UHC, laws have been passed to boost mental health care as well as treatment for HIV / AIDS.

The additional services are welcome developments, but public health care has been woefully inadequate long before the pandemic. Quality health care is a luxury beyond the reach of millions of Filipinos.

If you see the crowding at government hospitals, where patients wait in line as early as 3 a.m. to make sure they can get free treatment within the day, you will describe the health situation as a crisis.

The UHC law is meant to address this inadequacy. But state resources are stretched too thin, especially with the COVID emergency, and the free services and medicines are limited.

Because of poverty, millions of Filipinos grow up physically and mentally stunted by poor nutrition and generally unhealthy. Their mothers suffer from the myriad problems arising from poor reproductive health.

A public health issue that has been around for a long time, but highlighted only in recent years, is mental health. The risks posed by psychological distress, especially to teens with raging hormones, have been aggravated by the ease of bullying and spread of toxicity through social media.

Perhaps that report from the Department of Education itself, that 404 students in public schools committed suicide in the 2021-2022 academic year alone while another 2,147 attempted it can bring home the seriousness of the problem.

Forced isolation during the COVID lockdowns as well as the new learning modes aggravated mental health problems among students, according to child welfare advocates. Adults suffered as well. But dealing with COVID is simpler than addressing mental health problems.

For starters, the country suffers from an acute lack of competent mental health professionals to deal with the problem.

The COVID crisis has abated. With the health emergency in transition, it’s time to refocus on the other crises in public health that are still very much around.