We are not being alarmist here. We are just stating the plain facts: this new wave of Covid-19 is much more serious than the previous ones.
In Laguna province alone, cases went up almost immediately after the Christmas and New Year revelries – from 22 cases reported on December 28, 2021 to 469 cases by January 5.
That number, in itself, is a 71-percent increase from the 273 new cases reported the previous day.
By January 11, it had zoomed back to the levels that we had experienced mid-2021, with 3,258 active cases reported.
This despite the fact that Laguna province is now under Alert Level 3 and an intensified effort is now underway not only to control the movement of people once again but also to deploy more Covid-19 shots to those who are still unvaccinated.
Experts had said that with the relaxation of restrictions during December – and the threat of the Omicron variant – this new wave of Covid-19 case spikes is, in effect, inevitable.
But with the rate of increase in Covid-19 cases in these past days, it would be safe to assume that, by the end of January, nearly everyone of us Lagunenses will have contracted – or be exposed – to the virus.
Some medical experts have said that having everybody exposed to the virus may actually be the light at the end of the tunnel that we have all been waiting for, as this will finally bring “herd immunity” and that the virus may be evolving into a “seasonal” illness.
But as the World Health Organization recently warned, this does not mean that we can lower our guard against the coronavirus.
According to most hospitals here in Laguna province, this is quickly turning into pandemic of the unvaccinated. Majority of those who required hospitalization have yet to receive their vaccine, while those who were already vaccinated only got mild symptoms.
The battle is not over, so to speak, so the best way to deal with this new surge is to act like we already had the virus – continue practicing health protocols and get yourself protected against the virus.