I don’t know exactly because, let’s face it, it can get confusing and, truth be told, I don’t consider the matter to be of utmost importance considering that majority of Cebuanos have yet to recover from the devastation wrought by Super Typhoon Odette, which struck the island on the night of Dec. 16, 2021.
Oh, I’m talking about the current number of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) cases in Cebu. And it doesn’t matter what variant of the disease it is because to me, they’re all the same.
Now I don’t mean to be flippant about the pandemic. I know many people who have lost loved ones since the disease arrived on our shores in the first quarter of 2020.
It hasn’t been easy. For all of us. Or maybe the right word is “most.” I’m sure a few took and continues to take advantage of public paranoia and are laughing all the way to the bank.
But it has almost been two years. The Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases must be getting tired. Although I know it has no choice but “to assess, monitor, contain, control and prevent the spread” of Covid-19 because it was created to do just that.
Still, at the back of their minds, the IATF officials must be raring to move on. They, too, must want life to return to normal.
Here in Cebu, especially in the metro and in the 36 local government units that were heavily affected by Super Typhoon Odette, people are still literally picking up the pieces of their broken lives.
So I don’t think the threat of the Omicron variety of Covid-19 gives them goosebumps.
Don’t forget, they’ve just been to hell and back.
In fact, many residents in the metro, especially in Lapu-Lapu City, and in the south of the province still do not have power let alone any internet connection or phone signal. Or if they do, then good for them. They deserve a much-needed break.
So the earlier announcement that the cities of Cebu, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu and now the whole of Cebu were placed under Alert Level 3 because of the growing number of Covid-19 cases should be taken with a grain of salt and raised eyebrows.
Let me give you some perspective.
More than 90,000 families in Cebu are currently homeless after their houses were destroyed by Super Typhoon Odette.
As of Friday, Jan. 14, 2022, the Department of Health 7 logged 3,792 active Covid-19 cases in the entire Central Visayas, of which more than 95 percent are either mild or asymptomatic.