WE CONTINUE to learn things in our ongoing fight for survival against the Covid-19. This is because it is teaching us the reality that we cannot return to normalcy unless we will be ushered into a society that has reached herd immunity. With the 110 million population of the country, it could take some time before we could vaccinate at least 70 percent of our population.
Where we are now is still way too far from the target, but at least the government is doing everything despite some constraints along the way. We just need to accept that we have nothing to do at this time than cooperate to ensure safety for ourselves and our family. Let us remember that the crisis on the coronavirus is widespread that other societies are also struggling like us.
As in the past many days, the figures are telling us that number of cases kept increasing. The average daily rate at the national level is at 7,000 cases, but less than half of these cases are from Metro Manila. It is giving a signal that the situation could be improving and other cities and provinces outside of the National Capital Region (NCR) especially in Visayas and Mindanao, would be a concern.
Bacolod recorded the highest number of cases during Independence Day (June 12), at 236 cases based on the report of the Department of Health (DOH) Western Visayas. Prior to this is an upward trend. On June 8-81 cases, June 9-92, June 10-138 and June 11-164 cases.
I don’t know how our Emergency Operations Center (EOC) would deal with this trend and what measures they are implementing other than the ongoing vaccination. I presume that vaccination can just be pursued slowly while not sacrificing efforts to detect, test and treat our people with Covid-19.
The situation calls for a continuing multi-faceted approach of our government as a contrast to the one-track effort where resources and manpower are poured in. We are apprised that should we focus on one aspect of this fight and leaving the other will increase our vulnerability.
Our hospitals since last week had been releasing announcements that their spaces for Covid-19 are already full and many still are on the waitlist. The other day, Riverside Medical Center announced that they could not accept patients related to Covid-19 and with those exhibiting symptoms.
Dr. Julius Drilon of the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital also shared the same situation, with most of his health workers exposed or still in isolation.
In all this, we could reflect and learn from situations. We may be exposed to false consciousness on the type of quarantine (MGCQ) that we have that’s why we felt there is silence despite the high number of cases. Secondly, the vaccination that had been rolled out could have developed a belief among our people that they will not be infected, hence, they’ve started going out in places. Lastly, we could guess that probably, we can expect that figures will show a decline naturally in the number of cases despite the absence of intervention. We’ll see how the trend would go in the coming days.
Supposedly, we cannot allow that we approach situations like this too lightly. Ordinary individuals may have no guidance even at the least report of those barangays where positive cases are detected. We need to be guided on the spread of infections in our community to prepare as it attempts to come closer to us and our family.
For sure we need the guidance of our government through information or any available mode that could tell us, we are still in control of everything despite the situations.