EDITORIAL - Don’t tempt fate

Despite the orders of the Department of Interior and Local Government for cemeteries to be closed from October 29 until November 2, it seems some local officials think the pandemic situation is now safe enough to circumvent this order.

One of them is Cebu City’s acting mayor Michael Rama.

“As we welcome the tact of our national government to place our city and the rest of Cebu under Alert Level 2 that we appreciate as it fits well the prevailing circumstances, we will still adopt what fits better in our Kalag-kalag Directive,” Rama said.

In explaining his stand, Rama said only fully-vaccinated individuals aged between 18 to 65 will be allowed to visit the cemeteries on November 1 and 2. They will also be allowed only an hour to visit their dearly departed.

For now, perhaps it would be best if Rama heeds the order of the DILG.

For one, it will be difficult to make sure only those fully-vaccinated visit the cemeteries. Yes, there are vaccination cards that can be checked at the entrance, but remember that these are easy to fake. Does the city plans to have personnel to check the QR code of each and every card?

Let us also not forget that not all legitimate vaccination cards have QR codes on them, as the first ones to be released didn’t have this feature.

For another reason, how are they going to make sure visitors only stay an hour? Are they going to have personnel checking up on “overstaying” visitors?

Enforcing social distancing may also be an issue. Especially in public cemeteries where the graves are practically right next to and on top of each other. People will have no choice but to crowd alleyways and narrow passages.

In such an environment it will become easy for people to forget the quarantine protocols that should be followed.

Perhaps it would be best to keep the cemeteries closed during those days. The risks are just too great. While numbers do show that COVID-19 is at a downtrend here and in other places, we should keep it this way and not tempt fate.