While the Philippines is gradually easing its restrictions on the movements of people because of improving figures on COVID-19 infections and deaths, most of the rest of the world was reporting rising cases this weekend.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said countries in the northern hemisphere were suffering a major resurgence of cases. The continent of Europe is facing a “highly concerning epidemiological situation,” Director Andrea Ammon of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control said.
All European countries, she said, except Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, and Greece, are now in the “serious concern” category, with Spain becoming the first European nation to reach a million cases, followed by France. Germany’s death toll passed `10,000 Saturday.
New restrictions, including curfew, were imposed in Rome and other parts of Italy. A full lockdown was ordered in Wales, England, in Ireland, and in Poland. Belgium had one of Europe’s deadliest per-capita outbreaks.
On the other side of the globe, the United States kept its dubious record of the country with the most cases, 8,575,177, and deaths, 224,889, as of October 25, according to Johns Hopkins University. The rise in COVID-19 cases in Europe and the US at this time seems to confirm earlier fears that the virus thrives in cold winter weather.
No vaccine has yet been fully developed with WHO approval. China and Russia have their own vaccines which they are now using on their own people, but these have not met the rigid requirements of the WHO, including a final Part 3 testing period of about three months involving thousands of people in the test group.
As for a healing drug for those already hit by COVID-19, the US Food and Drug Administration approved last October 22 the drug Veklury (remdesivir). This will help the millions now confined in hospitals. But what the world awaits is a vaccine which could protect billions from getting infected.
We in the Philippines have begun to ease our restrictions as our COVID-19 cases came under control, but we must continue to maintain the three simple steps of “Mask, Hugas, Iwas.” The people of Europe and the US have not been as compliant as Filipinos when it comes to restrictions on their individual liberties and freedom of movement, many continuing to gather in those countries without face masks. That may explain the resurging cases now being reported by the World Health Organization.