EDITORIAL - Resistant to the rules, not the virus

Cebu City seems to have achieved another nefarious record during this pandemic; we again have over 500 active COVID-19 cases, the most number of infections for the past 44 days.

However, even as the cases rise, authorities are still noting more and more incidents of quarantine protocol violations, prompting the Emergency Operations Center to order all establishments selling food and drinks to assign personnel to monitor their customers' compliance with the minimum health standards.

Can we never leave this roller-coaster of rising and falling COVID-19 numbers? Will there be no end to this vicious cycle of strict compliance with the rules and then letting our guard down again?

We can only conclude that the numbers are rising again because many people have become careless about observing quarantine protocols. In case people have forgotten, the virus doesn’t seek out victims on its own the way mosquitoes seek out warm bodies; it is passed on from one person to another.

It can only be transmitted from one person to another if the carrier or receiver was in a public space, wasn’t observing physical distancing or other rules, or wasn’t wearing personal protective equipment or wearing it improperly.

And now more and more people are calling for the rule requiring face shields to be worn in public to be scrapped.

For now, despite the numbers mentioned above, the city isn’t in any semblance of a crisis. The city’s positivity rate of 4.08% is still within the World Health Organization’s threshold of 5%. As for the availability of beds for COVID-19 patients, we are also in the clear at 20.4% occupancy.

However, like we said in previous editorials tackling the never-ending rise and fall of numbers, all this can change in the blink of an eye. Just like that the situation can become a crisis.

Let’s hope the most stubborn among us, the most resistant to the rules that have been found to prevent COVID-19 transmission, realize the errors of their ways before it’s too late.