"Just as March entered, the government hastily decided to lift the requirements on travel such as travel and medical certificates (that are issued after tests to check on COVID-19 symptoms). The medical requirement alone was enough deterrent for people to mindlessly move from one place to another. But without the very costly and tedious RT-PCR tests and other recognized COVID-19 tests, carriers and infected persons can now intermingle in any space."
It is understandable that we prep up the economy. But are we ready for any spikes in COVID-19 cases, or its new variants that are slowly erupting in different parts of our country?
Just as March entered, the government hastily decided to lift the requirements on travel such as travel and medical certificates (that are issued after tests to check on COVID-19 symptoms). The medical requirement alone was enough deterrent for people to mindlessly move from one place to another. But without the very costly and tedious RT-PCR tests and other recognized COVID-19 tests, carriers and infected persons can now intermingle in any space.
But with these two requirements now gone, people can just move from one place to another any time and this would naturally lead to resurgence of coronavirus infections in practically all areas of the country.
Masks, shields
It can be said that people will still be required to don the mandatory face masks and shields always when out of their homes. But no one can really monitor if such minimum requirements are complied with considering that most people walking on the streets lift their shields just like a head band and masks are lowered below the noses.
With travel now allowed and cinemas opened, let us expect that our healthcare system will once again be overwhelmed by COVID cases.
China Vaccines
Though the rollout of the vaccines—with the arrival of 600,000 doses of China-made Sinovac vaccines already shipped in the country, this volume of vaccines is hardly enough to even cover .001 percent of the population.
Those prioritized to be inoculated are the healthcare workers who are exposed and deal directly with the virus in the hospitals and laboratories. It is right to protect those in the frontlines. But what about the vulnerable sectors like the senior citizens, who are among those agog to go out in the open and experience their freedom to travel and socialize?
As it is now, the senior citizens dominate the spaces in malls and other places of entertainment. They roam around freely as if there is no virus that can hit them hard at whim.
Those other vaccines from the United States, Europe, India, and Russia have no fixed timetable in reaching our country. The best guess is by end of 2021 or early 2022. By then, how many of our people shall have died or have been confined because of the easing of restrictions on travel and other activities— all for the sake of the economy.
Many of the frontliners—despite the convincing ‘show’ during the rollout of the head of the Philippine General Hospital, neurosurgeon, Dr. Gerardo “Gap” Legaspi getting the first shot—are still wary about the Sinovac. They would rather wait for the vaccines from the US or UK, just not those from China. If these medical practitioners, who people perceive to be more knowledgeable about things like vaccines, lack the confidence in Sinovac, how much more for the ordinary mortals?
I, too, would wait for either AstraZeneca, which I expect to get from Quezon City where I signed up for it instead of getting Sinovac.