All Filipinos must help in ‘people’s war’ vs. COVID-19

When will this pandemic end? Are the vaccines really protecting us? Do we need a third shot as booster? Will COVID-19 be here forever and we will have to live with it?

These are several questions in mind after at least 531 days of various quarantine levels since March 17 last year. This virus damaged all Filipino families, infected and disrupted the lives of 1.86 million while killing our 32,000 kababayans, here and abroad. Many who passed are loved ones, relatives, friends, old or younge, rich and poor.

And quite sadly, the future still looks dire. FASSTER, DOH’s Disease Surveillance and Epidemiology group predicts that by the end of September, active cases will reach 525,000 nationwide (today was 130,350), including 220,000 here in NCR . New cases are predicted to reach 50,000 a day (latest was 18, 332) by end August, if all controls fail against COVID-19, with the dominating DELTA Variant. A consolation maybe is that our situation is at least better than our neighbors, Indonesia (306,706 actives), Malaysia (262,255) , Thailand (195,454), Vietnam (192,115) and Japan ( 218,403) .

But some good news are happening in NCR, after six weeks of alternating MECQ, ECQ with our 8pm-4am curfew. The virus reproduction number is now at 1.6 from 1.9 while new cases are coming down to 3,000 level after a high 4,000 average several weeks before. But, other regions are failing despite very strict ECQ and lockdowns, particularly Region 7 Central Visayas and Region -10 Northern Mindanao and the DOH is seriously alarmed and worried .

To me this is very great concern, coming from the fact that DOH and IATF are admitting that ECQ, the strictest government lockdown weapon, failed against the marching Delta variant in those regions. And as a matter of course, we must all be worried too.

Other experts are recommending more “draconian measures” to check the spread of COVID-19 Delta and its mutations. Many of our citizens do not follow minimum health protocols in streets and workplaces, triggering “community transmissions” all over. The LGUs have increased penalties for violators, but the hard-headedness of our kababayans still persist.

Since March 8 last year, our nation is under the State of public health emergency by virtue of Presidential Proclamation 922 issued by President Duterte. Initially, the nation was placed for six months under a “state of calamity” on March 16 last year but this was extended by another Proclamation 1021 for a period of one year from September 13, 2021 to September 16, this year. But these declarations are inadequate if not totally inutile in enforcing discipline and order amoung our people to follow minimum health protocols.

Today our nation is fighting the more transmissible and deadlier Delta variant and , next to follow would be the invincible vaccine-resistant Lambda. The contamination speed of these mutations is just a whiff of 5 seconds against the original 15 minutes of the Alpha and Beta variants. It is now proving bane of the fastest and modern “contact tracing” not only here but worldwide.

It is my humble opinion that government should recalibrate all its efforts and should put every Filipino on “War Mindset” (Digmaan ito). This Invisible “invader” is running loose in our native land, and our very own people are propagating it. It is time to protect our family and country. After more than a year and a half, we are still losing against the virus, despite the numerous declarations of states of calamity and national health emergency.

All Filipinos should wake-up and realize that we must all unite and help one another to prevent the spread and viciousness of this killer COVID-19 and its variants.