EDITORIAL — Remembering COVID

On All Souls’ Day yesterday, among those who were mourned were the 66,864 people officially recorded to have succumbed to COVID-19. Health experts say the infections and deaths have been underreported, especially in the later years of the pandemic when vaccines and affordable self-administered COVID testing kits had become widely available in the country. Deaths from complications related to COVID, such as pneumonia and heart failure after the patient had tested negative for the coronavirus, often also went unreported.

Today, most people have stopped masking and all COVID restrictions have been lifted. The government, however, continues to keep track of COVID-19 cases. As of last Nov. 1, the Department of Health had recorded 4,140,383 COVID cases nationwide since SARS-CoV-2 entered the country in January 2020.

Of that number, 6,138 cases remained active as of Nov. 1, with the highest infections recorded in Metro Manila. At the start of the pandemic, those thousands would have warranted strict lockdowns. At this point, however, millions of Filipinos have attained immunity, through vaccines or naturally after surviving infections.

The question at this point is whether the nation is ready for the next pandemic. Health experts have warned that this is inevitable, considering the globalized nature of human travel and cargo transport combined with disruptions of wildlife habitats. Before COVID, the Philippines had largely been spared from avian flu pandemics and epidemics. This lulled the country into initial complacency when COVID emerged from the Chinese city of Wuhan and began its rampage across the planet.

Public health care in the country was woefully inadequate even before COVID struck. The pandemic highlighted the depth of the inadequacy. Among the first COVID fatalities were health professionals – not only because of the absence of vaccines, but because of the sheer lack of personal protective equipment. When the PPEs were finally procured, corruption is believed to have tainted the deal. Hospitals faced an acute shortage of nurses.

At the height of the pandemic, there was talk about setting up a virology institute, of providing more support to health care workers and scientists, and of course of expanding health care facilities. Today, these objectives seem to have been relegated to the back burner. Private hospitals continue to ask for timely reimbursements from the Philippine Health Insurance Corp., whose P89.9 billion is being impounded for the pork barrel of Congress. Meanwhile, nurses continue to leave the country in droves, lured by better pay and working conditions overseas.

The best time to prepare for the next pandemic is when there is no urgency for it. The government must dust off the plans at the height of COVID and see them through, before another deadly health crisis strikes.