The country where the deadly coronavirus first emerged is currently battling its worst outbreak ever of locally transmitted COVID cases, with Chinese officials forced to shut down the Shanghai Disneyland as infections surge in the financial hub.
Chinese administrative region Hong Kong is also struggling to contain its worst COVID outbreak since the start of the pandemic, recording 14,068 new infections and 223 COVID-related deaths yesterday.
South Korea, whose pandemic response had been deemed a success, recently reported record daily infections topping 600,000. Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam are battling Omicron-driven waves, while cases have spiked in Australia and New Zealand.
Several countries in Western Europe are again grappling with a wave of infections driven by the latest COVID variant of concern, Omicron, and its “stealth” subvariant BA.2, which has also been reported in the US particularly in New York City and New Jersey.
These recent developments are useful to bear in mind as the Philippines eases pandemic restrictions and people throw caution to the wind amid frenzied campaigning for the May 9 general elections.
China has responded to the coronavirus surge with a combination of massive testing and widespread lockdowns, pursuing what has been described as a “dynamic zero-COVID” approach.
The Philippines cannot afford mass testing, and the high cost of RT-PCR tests has led to people resorting to self-administered home testing kits that have not been approved by regulators. People are being lulled into complacency by reports of declining infections.
But Our World in Data shows daily COVID cases in the Philippines still in the hundreds, with deaths still recorded. As in Hong Kong, where most of the COVID deaths involve unvaccinated elderly or those with comorbidities, there is still a significant number of people in the Philippines who have yet to get their primary doses, and many elderly and immunocompromised persons have yet to get their boosters.
The World Health Organization has not declared a shift from a pandemic to endemic stage. In fact the WHO keeps reminding the world that the pandemic is far from over, and could even be entering a more dangerous phase as people become complacent or become tired of observing minimum health safety protocols. It’s a warning that deserves to be heeded as neighboring countries battle fresh COVID surges.