Normally we celebrate milestones—golden wedding anniversary, centennial foundation of an institution, 20,000-career points in basketball, and other outstanding achievements—but not this time. Two million deaths worldwide on Friday, caused by the dreaded coronavirus, is a tragedy of catastrophic proportions. The US has recorded the most number of deaths, which has now reached 400,000, followed by Brazil (210,000) and India (160,000). It took more than nine months since the virus appeared in Wuhan, China for the entire world to reach 1 million deaths, but it took just 3.5 months for the virus to claim another 1 million lives.
In March last year, Trump declared that his government would have done a very good job if it could keep the death toll to 100,000, and he boldly predicted that normality would return in his country by June. Ten months later, the numbers are still surging and the pandemic remains as the biggest problem of the incoming US administration. Trump is banished from his office but the rampaging coronavirus stays. Crossing the 2-million mark in a little over one year is simply staggering and mind-boggling. That’s more than the total population of many cities and provinces in the Philippines. That is almost four times greater than the 557,000 total deaths, both military and civilian, our country suffered during the Second World War, considered as the deadliest military conflict in history. Covid-19 is definitely one of the worst pandemics. Together with cholera, the Black Death, the Spanish Flu, the bubonic plague and the small pox, these pandemics had killed hundreds of millions of people. What a scourge to mankind; what a bane to the entire world.
What is deeply concerning is that the virus mutates over time. Now, we have the new variant, first discovered in the United Kingdom, which is shown to be more contagious than the current strain. It is easily transmissible and spreads faster, although not necessarily more lethal. What is certain is that this new strain will further spike the infections around the world. It was reported that the Philippines now has one confirmed case—a man returning from Dubai was found afflicted with this new variant and is currently under isolation and treatment. If uncontained, our active caseload may go up, which may overburden our hospitals and limited medical facilities. More coronavirus patients may crowd our health-care system around the country and stretch our resources to their limits. Thus, instead of easing our response to the pandemic, our authorities may impose tighter restrictions. Heightening the restrictions to adequately respond to the threat will only stymie our efforts to open up our businesses to boost our economy. An added concern: What if the vaccines won’t work against new variants, which may emerge later? If getting one vaccine is already a logistical nightmare for us, providing the right vaccine for each variant would be unimaginable.
Still, our brightest hope is the arrival of the vaccines. Many countries have already distributed jabs and rolled out massive vaccination programs. Our country, however, is hobbled by serious issues such as funding, selecting the right vaccine, logistics, and people’s resistance to vaccination.
The Senate is still conducting its investigation on the matter and our hope is that the vaccination program will not be politicized. Likewise, we trust that the usual bureaucratic tape will not imperil its roll out. Let’s take our lessons from the experience of other countries. It seems that the US inoculation program leaves much to be desired. Trump promised to have 20 million Americans vaccinated by the end of 2020 but it had only given about 7 million shots. The UK, Canada and many other rich countries failed to hit their targets.
The Philippines should adopt Israel’s inoculation program, which has already vaccinated 25 percent of its total population in just one month of roll out. I trust that our authorities are fully prepared to launch an intensive, faster and equitable roll out once the vaccines start coming.
The crisis is far from over. Only last week, the US posted the highest number of deaths at 4,400 in one day. We should continue to be vigilant as ever, if not more. Let’s not get tired of wearing facemasks and shields and constantly observe social distancing. Washing hands should be regularly practiced and everyone should reduce interaction with people outside their homes and avoid crowds. This virus is vicious and its virulence knows no bounds. My New Year’s wish is for the IATF and our health experts to say that we have tamed the virus and that we can now slowly go back to normal.
As a senior citizen many times over, it depresses me whenever I hear that a colleague, a classmate or a former co-worker died from Covid-19 or related illness. And it wrenches my heart that I cannot even pay my last respect and personally console with the family of my dear departed. Now that the full horror of the pandemic has finally dawned on all of us, we cannot afford to suffer from another disaster that displaces workers from their jobs, distances human beings from their loved ones, decimates people and destroys the economy. We’ve read and learned about lethal events and calamities in the past from history books and we were astounded how such disruptive and destructive events could visit mankind. Actually living through a pandemic and experiencing its horrors in our own lifetime is just unthinkable. We pray that our progeny will be spared from this monumental grief.