Flattening?

"All these sins of omission and commission will need to be accounted for."

Even the medical professionals debate whether the curve is flattening in our coronavirus contagion. If we take the statistics being churned out by the Department of Health, there seems to be a lower number of cases being reported each day. Thus, the curve does not seem to be as steep as in the previous month.

And indeed, in the private hospitals in Metro Manila, the number of patients being treated for likely COVID-19 illness is tapering off. Yet even DOH insiders and government hospital staff are saying that the numbers could be deceiving, because there is yet a huge backlog of cases that are being tested only recently. Is the DOH “massaging” the numbers?

Now we are in a frenzy of mass testing, with LGUs focusing on the densely populated marginalized communities, using test kits mostly donated by the private sector, or bought with local funds. Imagine how much better if these had been done since February.

In any case, we are heartened by the assurance being given by the IATF, through deputy implementer Vince Dizon, that we are now ramping up the testing which for two months. since we found out about the viral contagion that started in Wuhan, our health officials had failed to do.

Everybody and his mother knew that there is a basic formula — test, test, test. And trace or contact track. Before treatment is done. All these on a massive scale. But from late January till the middle of March, we were, in the lingo of the street smart, still “pa-petiks-petiks.”

So is the curve flattening? Still in the realm of speculation. Believe whom you want to believe.

This column is being written before the IATF, through presidential spokesman Harry Roque, announces whether the ECQ will become a GCQ, and where specifically, signaling a gradual return to normalcy in the lives of every Filipino.

We watched the delayed telecast of the president at 8:00 in the morning yesterday, but he bade us to wait for the announcement from Roque-Duque. And since I had a lunch meeting, I decided to write this before their presser.

I took note of the President’s stern reminder about wearing masks when going out of one’s residence, ECQ or GCQ, in fact, until a vaccine is discovered against the virus.

Yet I recall that Secretary Duque and his undersecretaries used to tell the public that face masks are not necessary unless you feel symptoms of disease, such as coughing and fever, and they were saying this even as China had already declared lockdowns, and the contagion had begun to spread to other countries.

Here in Taiwan, of course, there is a common health practice where people wear masks whenever they have severe colds, similar to the Japanese. And as early as the Lunar New Year, the Ministry of Health asked people to wear face masks to protect themselves from the yet-unnamed virus. By February, face masks were being distributed through drugstores and other outlets to everyone with a health insurance ID on an odd-even basis with assigned days. We in the foreign missions had our face masks delivered to our offices for free, courtesy of the government.

Oh well, all these sins of omission and commission will need to be accounted for. The damage to the economy, let alone the number of lives needlessly lost due to “misfeasance, non-feasance” and perhaps even “malfeasance,” as our laws call negligence, inefficiency, incompetence, and even corruption, will need to face come-uppance after normalcy or some semblance of it, returns.

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Filipino Catholics here in Taiwan were happy when the Archbishop of Taipei, John Hung Shan-Chuan announced last week that Masses will resume in churches. There are strict rules, however, on social distancing and disinfection, aside from wearing face masks and being tested through thermal scanners before entry to the places of worship.

Even if there was never any lockdown imposed in Taiwan, the archdiocese as early as mid-February suspended the celebration of masses in order to prevent possible spread of the disease, considering that even asymptomatic persons could be sources of contagion.

What is considered “Little Manila” where St. Christopher’s Church is located, known to OFWs and the Filipino community here as “Won-Won” (the name of a building similar to Lucky Plaza in Singapore), brims with life weekends, as our “kababayans” attend masses said in Pilipino.

For the last three months, even the carinderias and hole-in-the-wall Filipino restaurants had to close down when the archdiocese stopped assemblies such as Sunday mass. Business was down to almost zero, and we all missed the sinigang, adobo, lechon kawali, daing na bangus , pancit palabok, menudo and other samples of Pinoy cuisine available in the “Won-Won” environs of Zhongshan district.

Otherwise, day-to-day life in Taiwan has been quite normal, for citizens and foreigners like us alike, although the obligatory face masks, thermal scanners and physical distancing measures were strictly followed.

Even movie theaters are back to life, but with social distancing. Imagine movie dates where couples cannot sit beside each other.

The COVID-19 curve in Taiwan has long flattened, with 440 cases hardly increasing for the last three weeks, and just seven deaths. All these because government acted quickly and efficiently, and with utmost transparency.

And people followed rules. This is discipline coupled with good governance, and a strong sense of community, of nationhood.