IT IS still a continuing situation of uncertainty. And the more that we are slowly trying to resolve things, new and emerging problems are created. Scholars projected that this situation of our fight against the coronavirus could even take longer than expected.
Due to the recent surge of cases in Metro Manila and four other provinces, an enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) was declared by the government on these areas for the next few days, particularly during the observance of the Holy Week.
There are reports that new variants are already the cause of the recent surge, but the health department has not ruled exactly on this. Something could be done to evaluate when data would start to come in to cover days where ECQ was implemented. In situations where the number of cases would remain high, it suggests, something could be wrong that movements of people are not the only reason for the surge.
Vaccine remains the only hope. But how soon we can make a perfect fit for the coronavirus and the new variants, that remains to be seen. Many are skeptical about the vaccines despite it being the last hope for protection against Covid-19. Discussions continue to influence minds that all this is still a work in progress.
It would be sad that in our quest trying to make immediate solutions to the pandemic, many ways may not be perfect at first. There are always false starts and risks that have to be taken on the way to perfection. We just hope that times would not allow anymore to sacrifice lives just because we want to seek a perfect fit for our fight against the Covid-19.
Someone told me that we are still in the trial and error period. Just because we don’t belong as one of those lead countries on research and development, in trying to resolve this problem, we are also the least in terms of priority. We couldn’t have other options than go to manual mode of fighting the pandemic just like implementing lockdowns to prevent mobility of those possible carriers of the disease.
I was reminded of my talk with my boss and friend, Dr. Jay Estrellas, the Vice President for Academic Affairs of Carlos Hilado Memorial State College, on the importance of life at the height of this pandemic. It came to me to think about our past discussions about life and the many possibilities as Dr. Jay celebrated his special day yesterday. We were talking about the importance of life at present and the manner by which individuals can carry an identity for themselves while still being alive.
We have different views on how we could be remembered by people around us. Some might like to be hated, while others want to be remembered as a nice person, who then becomes very conscious of how he appears to people around him. But all is summarized by the fact that life is just a temporary commodity that nobody could boast about it and a little twist could probably end it all. Just the same, many would like to be thought-about as good as the norms of society dictates.
As Dr. Jay Estrellas would have it, even at this time of pandemic, we can still have our version of celebrating our special day. It is in these trying times that life needs to be looked up to as an important gift from above. Life every day is indeed a gift.
My special greetings on the celebration of Dr. Jay’s birthday yesterday. I knew him for many years because he was my former boss at the Graduate Programs of the University of St. La Salle.