The second year of the Covid-19 pandemic may be tougher than the first, given how the new coronavirus is spreading, especially in the northern hemisphere as more infectious variants circulate, the World Health Organization said earlier this week.
“We are going into a second year of this, it could even be tougher given the transmission dynamics, and some to the issues that we are seeing,” Mike Ryan, the WHO’s top emergencies official said during an event on social media.
The latest epidemiological update issued by the WHO said that after two weeks of fewer cases being reported, some five million new cases were reported last week, the likely result of a letdown of defenses during the holiday season in which people and the virus came together.
The worldwide death toll of the Covid-19 pandemic is approaching 2 million people and 91.5 million have been infected so far.
Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead for COVID-19, warned: “After the holidays, in some countries the situation will get a lot worse before it gets better.”
“I worry that we will remain in this pattern of peak and trough and peak and trough, and we can do better,” Van Kerhove said.
In a country whose people have been subjected to one of the world’s longest and strictest quarantines and lockdowns, the Covid-19 situation still remains among the worst managed in the planet. It is difficult to imagine how much tougher things can become.
But the ever resilient Filipino has, as usual, no choice but to rise to the occasion yet again in order to survive. As the saying goes, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Our government is counting on us to do everything we can to prevent the spread of the coronavirus and Filipinos will have to deliver our best performance yet, invoking the bayanihan spirit and all the other positive clichés we can muster once again.
Another wave is coming and the respite we have been counting on after nine months may have to be delayed yet again. We have to prove again that Filipinos are tougher so let us get down to business and gird our loins for the impending onslaught by doing everything we’ve been doing with more urgency and intensity.*
