IT’S NOT always good to be “positive,” as in COVID 19-positive that refers to a human being afflicted with coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
As of yesterday, the World Health Organization’s “odometer” on COVID victims peaked at 1,853,357 cases, of which 114,253 have died and 423,692 have recovered.
The Philippines holds the most number of cases in Southeast Asia – 4,648, of which 297 have died and 197 have recovered.
The number of cases and deaths seem insignificant because they pale in comparison to the sufferers of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, cancer, and respiratory diseases. Around 300,000 Filipinos die of these diseases each year.
What makes COVID-19 scary, however, is its incurability and contagiousness that gave birth to “social distancing”. With no vaccine or drugs to ward off the virus, the victim is left with only palliative care and a strong immune system to fight and survive.
As a senior citizen, I belong to the “high-risk” group. But having caught and conquered pneumonia, emphysema, asthma and atherosclerosis, I must have overcome that risk.
To be positive about COVID is to survive and look forward to the resumption of normal life by the end of April when the enhanced community quarantine would have ended, enabling us to go out of our houses to work or engage in business anew.
So far, the rich and the middle class still have the money to buy food. It’s the poor “isang kahig, isang tuka” who could succumb to hunger.
But what I see on my viewfinder is the overall post-COVID economy. After a month and a half of non-productivity, would the same employers be still capable of keeping the same employees?
It would be a different lockdown this time – a recession or reduced trade and industrial activities. The new jobless could be the next drug pushers and thieves.
Where have we gone wrong? Is there life after COVID-19?
The undisputable “given” is that the coronavirus originated from Wuhan City, China sometime in the last quarter of 2019. But as to whether the virus “jumped” from pangolin meat to a Chinese “gourmet” or was biologically-engineered in a Wuhan laboratory, it remains to be proven.
China has attempted to “sell” the theory that it was contaminated animal meat that started the pandemic.
But we have been seeing video movies on YouTube blaming the Chinese Communist Party for deliberately engineering coronavirus into a biological weapon in pursuit of China’s ambition to subjugate the United States and dominate the world.
Unfortunately, the virus had allegedly “leaked” and turned Wuhan natives into its first victims, thus initiating the contagion.
Independent Chinese journalists have revealed to the world media a detailed “cover-up” of the aforesaid evil project done in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Without blaming the government, a Chinese doctor, Li Wenliang, 34, warned the public about the mysterious disease that was already killing Wuhan residents in November 2019. The military warned him against further “spreading false rumor”.
Li henceforth concentrated on treating the infected patients until he himself caught the disease and died.
It was only on December 31, 2019 that President Li Jinping confirmed the breakout of the “novel coronavirus” or what is now coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
On March 12, Zhao Lijian, the spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, vaguely blamed American soldiers for bringing COVID-19 to China.
Angered, US President Donald Trump called it “China virus,” prompting Republican allies in Congress to call China accountable for “genocide”.
Well, considering our dispute with China over the West Philippine Sea, our own legislators might finally make it our “call,” too. (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
