After imposing one of the world’s longest, strictest, and oftentimes most irrational lockdown and quarantine restrictions, the Philippines is finally starting to reopen and the way we are doing it is honesty quite scary.
When I was at our local mall the other day to do some grocery shopping and buy wood screws for our daughter’s performance task at school. Aside from seeing more people than usual in the mall this time around, I also saw that the children’s play place which had been closed ever since the pandemic broke out had finally reopened. It was quite jarring to see the ball pit having actual kids in it but what was worrying was most of them weren’t even wearing masks in that air-conditioned public space.
The nationwide vaccination effort is finally going full blast, and with basically no more restrictions on who can be jabbed, towns and cities that don’t have to deal with vaccine hesitancy can probably hit their herd immunity targets by early next year. We don’t even have to wear that annoying face shield anymore. After almost two years of being cooped up, it is a bit scary but over the past week, life was finally looking like it is starting to be normal.
That was until the new variant of concern, dubbed Omicron, came around.
First detected in Gauteng, South Africa, it caused the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Sars-CoV2 Virus Evolution to raise alarms for several reasons. Early epidemiological data from cases in Gauteng – one of the most populated regions of South Africa, showed the strain appearing to spread faster than other parts of the country. That suggests Omicron has a new combination of multiple mutations that could make it more transmissible than the Delta variant.
The detection of Omicron triggered global alarm as governments around the world scrambled to impose new travel curbs and financial markets sold off due to fears that the variant could resist vaccinations and upend the ongoing economic reopening after a two-year pandemic.
Dubbed a “variant of concern” last week by the WHO, Omicron is potentially more contagious than previous variants and has already been detected in Australia, Belgium, Botswana, Britain, Denmark, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, France and Canada.
In the Philippines, we know what this means: prepare your face shields!
While we cannot expect timely travel bans, increased testing or improved contact tracing, we should expect our government’s symbol of defense against COVID-19 to make a comeback within the next few days. Even if face shields are most likely useless against a more transmissible Omicron, which is most likely transmitted via aerosols instead of less contagious droplets, we will be forced to use face shields once again because knowing how our boomer command thinks, having 1 additional layer of defense, no matter how ineffective and unproven by science, is better when all our other lines of defenses are practically useless, even after almost two years of pandemic response.
We still don’t have proper mass testing, there is still no unified contact tracing system, our mass vaccination program might need another round of better vaccines is the Omicron mutation somehow manages to defeat current jab formulas, but we have face shields. Good thing I didn’t throw away mine yet.
Omicron proves that this pandemic will not go away easily. It will mutate and try to make a comeback and what is worst is that it the countries that are not prepared to mount a proper defense that will be the worst hit by any wave/surge/comeback. The Philippines that never mounted a proper defense from the start is going to be hit hard if we don’t learn our lesson and prepare a better defense plan for any future surges or mutations. We cannot depend on face shields or late vaccination programs forever. The other pieces of the puzzle have to be set up and strengthened. We cannot continue to ignore mass testing and contact tracing forever and that is why we need to put better people who are not afraid to apply science-based solutions in charge of our country.
Even if Omicron turns out to be a dud, it should serve as a dire warning for all governments. The next variant or disease will probably be worse and we should have a plan in place so our pandemic response is better than the current one that put our poor country in the bottom of the barrel when it comes to battling a pandemic. We cannot continue counting on face shields, indiscriminate lockdowns and more of the same failed strategy that we saw with the OG COVID-19 up to Omnicron. Is our government preparing an action plan or is it already too busy prioritizing politics and dynasty building with the elections just a few months away?*
