By Ermin Garcia Jr.

 

AT the rate the country is going and managing the COVID-19 pandemic, people are obviously beginning to take the pandemic as merely a problematic numbers issue.

Except for media’s sources of news updates, there are no human faces attached to the problem. This explains in part why most are inclined to simply bash and blame Dagupeño DOH Sec. Pincoy Duque, being the face of the IATF and confidant of President Duterte. In fairness to him, Sec. Duque is working with more than DOH’s 50 faceless health professionals and representatives of all departments engaged in dealing with the pandemic. So, what you hear from him is not his personal views but collective and validated consensus.

Occasionally, we see and hear consultants, health workers and experts as talking heads but they only serve to validate and affirm statistics and the relevant strategies attached to the updates. Nothing new there.

The policy of NO NAMES, NO FACES in reporting affected persons only served to reinforce the growing public perception that the pandemic is about more active or less cases, more recoveries or less. The same perception about deaths, nothing is human about them.

In fact, the citizenry does not learn anything from experiences of victims, just the cold fact that a victim, whether alive and suffering or dead and cremated, is classified merely as a number.

I realize that the immediate and quick reaction to revelation of personal data that identifies a victim is to risk and suffer stigma. Victims risk being ostracized and discriminated against by insensitive neighbors and readers who read about the victim’s case. That could be the case if the person is only identified as a Covid patient

Unless we change and adopt a new policy for fear of violating and contravening our country’s privacy law, our people will and can never learn to accept that we have to live with the new normal, and do away with our old normal.

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PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. To help our people learn to accept the new normal – to protect one’s self and those around him – our health officials should encourage victims and their families to share their human experiences with the pandemic.

 I read one such account in my Facebook thread. It was a frank narration of what he and his family went through so it was not difficult seeing one’s self in his shoes.

 Anyone who reads it may not even remember his name after reading it but only the lessons from his experience. His personal account will surely make his readers understand the need to wear their face masks and shields after ignoring incessant calls by government to observe the minimum health protocols.   

 I’ll try to search for his article on Facebook and hopefully find it and share it here next week.

 My point is, humans learn from personal accounts of others who had a direct experience, not from official directives and reminders from government.

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WORKING WITH HUMANS. But even without the faces and names of patients, there is an untried way for the provincial government to flatten the curve that it earnestly sought last year. All it needs to do is to take a close look at how the crisis situation evolved and developed over the last 10 months.

Noting the Provincial Health Office’s reports, the Provincial IATF has shifted its focus on management of cases – treatment of cases and responses to current developments – not on the causes of the continuing reports of active cases.

It seems the Provincial IATF has forgotten that the problem is in the transmission of the virus by humans. The key buzz word is “human.”

No amount of number of isolation facilities, hospital beds, information campaign will lead the province to its elusive dream of flattening the curve if the focus is on the reaction to the transmission. NOTE: There can be no active cases, no recoveries, no deaths if the conduct of HUMANs are directly linked to the problem. Let me say that again: Covid virus lives via human transmission!

I strongly suggest that the provincial IATF considers going back to basics of the pandemic.

BASIC FACTS: The virus enters the human body principally via the nose and mouth. What kills the infected humans is a failed respiratory system, not liver failure, not heart attack, etc. To protect one’s self from being infected with the virus, the human must wear a face mask and field shield in public, or when engaging another human. That’s where the problem lies.

Yet, what-which-how many local governments are strictly enforcing the ordinance that requires residents to wear face masks and shields to this day? Are the LGUs implementing the provisions of their ordinances? A cursory trip to interior barangays will give the IATF the answer.

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HUMAN SOLUTIONS. So far, the national, provincial, city/town ATF has only gone as far as REMINDING the public to observe the minimum health and distancing protocols (like a broken record or a nagging spouse). Is anybody out there listening? New active cases of infected humans (not patients) continue to be reported.  

But has the IATF tried to determine whether the infected humans failed or forgot to wear their masks at any time in the last 72 hours before they were confirmed positive?  I doubt that, yet, therein lies to core of the problem.  Infected humans are hardly asked whether he/she failed to wear his/her mask in those critical days, and when, where?  

It’s imperative for the IATF to know first – what and who caused the transmission between “humans” before tracing who else were exposed to the person who was infected. After verifying with the initial carrier, each of the traced humans should also be asked the same question: “When did you fail or forget to wear your mask in the last 72 hours before you were confirmed positive?” 

Let the data show that the root cause of the pandemic is the failure of humans to protect themselves and others by forgetting to wear their masks and shields, not because the virus is everywhere. Knowing this as a fact, our governments can begin finally to look into human solutions for human problems in human issues.  

The best human solution I can think of for the New Normal is:

1) Strict enforcement of the ordinance requiring humans to wear masks (and shields) when leaving the house 24/7.  Violators (all humans) must be penalized according to the ordinance.

2) Making mayors and kapitans (all humans) accountable for the enforcement of the ordinance in public areas 24/7, i.e., streets, markets, malls, churches, restaurants, plaza, etc. 

Costs of strict enforcement? Nothing just making officials do their job! 

Needless to say here, once the humans have fully imbibed the new normal with government in complete control, local governments will not ever need to consider lockdowns and providing “ayuda”, finally stop spending on tests, maintaining isolation facilities and treating humans, and saving families the stigma, anguish and financial burden for being infected. 

The human solution is staring down at the IATF if only the humans there care to look.

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WATCH OUT There is a new health crisis about to break out, just as deadly – Dengue!

Most vulnerable are children. Nothing can be more painful than to see one’s young family member in pain not understanding what ails him.

I hope our hospitals have started to prepare enough reserve in their blood banks to serve children critically ill because of dengue.

Yes, dengue can be as deadly as Covid-Delta unless treated immediately!

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