EDITORIAL - One more prayer to the Holy Child

While a spike in cases of COVID-19 in the Philippines was predicted because of the holidays, this was fortunately not the case.

The Private Hospital Association of the Philippines Inc. said there was no surge in COVID-19 admissions. The Department of Health also said the pandemic situation here is becoming manageable with infections decreasing.

“Right now, our COVID-19 cases are plateauing. Infections are going down,” DOH officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said.

According to a report in Philstar.com, the DOH recorded 2,934 additional COVID-19 cases from January 9 to 15. This was 6% lower than the number of infections recorded the week before.

There is no doubt that this is good news. However, we should not forget that while things are indeed looking up, the world is still in a pandemic state. Infections and deaths in China continue to rise, and will mostly likely do so with the coming Lunar New Year celebrations.

And while we can say with some certainty that the worst is past us here in the Philippines, we are not totally out of the woods yet either. Even now we still hear of the occasional acquaintance getting infected, but usually not hospitalized for the coronavirus.

So even as we observe the last day of the Fiesta Señor today with the “hubo” or the changing of the vestments of the pilgrim image of the Holy Child, let us ask the Holy Child to protect us from this unseen threat.

We have just recently celebrated the Walk with Jesus, Walk with Mary, the solemn procession, the countless Masses, and the Sinulog grand parade and ritual showdown. By definition alone any of those mentioned events can be considered a superspreader.

And there is no way we can tell if anyone got sick until a week or two after all is said, celebrated, and done.

The good news is that we seem to have gotten used to already living with COVID-19, most of us now wear masks where appropriate, and know what and what not to do.

However, a little help from above can also go a long way to making sure we have indeed seen the worst of this awful chapter in recent history.