ENDEAVOR
COVID has invaded our homes and families in a massive way. Right after New Year’s Day, the record number of infections, including among our cherished apo, gave us an ultra-loud wake-up call: Isolate, medicate, and hydrate as we bravely face Omicron’s contagion. Indeed, it’s highly transmissible and we need to muster willpower – and prayer power – to overcome this health challenge.
Amid the frenzied response – including stocking up on vitamins and medicines, doing e-consultation and sharing coping measures with kith and kin alike – we are staring the novel coronavirus in the eye of its Omicron storm surge.
After 21 months of dodging COVID-19, thousands were infected by the Omicron variant, forcing entire families and households into days of enforced isolation and quarantine. Increased mobility and frequency of family and social gatherings between Christmas and New Year were cited as most probable causes.
Unvaccinated toddlers became common carriers of infection. According to one pediatrician, she encountered some 140 cases of toddlers and young kids testing positive for COVID while nursing low-grade fever – all within the first week of January 2022. While that was bad news, the good news was that the fever would subside and end after three to four days.
But these have prompted their parents, siblings, grandparents and kasambahay to subject themselves to both antigen and RT-PCR testing – and this soon uncovered a wide swath of infection all over Metro Manila, Calabarzon and Central Luzon. Many businesses and offices went on temporary shutdown as they reported high numbers of infected employees and their families.
The new COVID infections are predominantly mild and mostly asymptomatic. Most common symptoms are sore throat, dry cough and colds. Some report experiencing body malaise but most say they could go about their normal daily activities.
Recall that when the first expanded community quarantine (ECQ) was declared in March 2021, the mere mention of COVID struck fear into our hearts. Images that we avoided looking at were those of severely infected patients being intubated; those hospitalized invariably complained of breathing difficulties. First responders and frontliners were also among those who were contaminated and killed by the pandemic.
Within the first few months, we racked up names of close friends and relatives who had succumbed to the coronavirus. In mid-2021, it was the Delta variant that spawned a new reign of terror and claimed fresh waves of victims. One long-time friend surprisingly sent a Viber text commenting on a viral video clip involving the son of a common friend who had a brush with policemen who caught him driving under the influence. I had not heard from this friend for years before the onset of COVID – and here he was actively engaging me in a chat room. About a month later, I learned that he had succumbed to COVID and died. Such has been COVID’s sad narrative.
Today’s COVID patients, mostly on home isolation, have complete kits of medicines and vitamins and an abundance of doctors offering teleconsultation and home care packages. Included in the package is Molnupiravir, an anti-viral drug that is said to reduce viral load up to 80 percent, thereby providing a strong protective shield for those who are immune-compromised or with comorbidities.
Fr. Nicanor Austriaco, a Dominican priest and a Ph.D holder in microbiology affiliated with the OCTA research group, spoke recently on the possibility that the Omicron onslaught could be providing the proverbial silver lining. He opined that “those who survive Omicron infection will get antibodies that will protect them” like a “natural vaccine” not only against Omicron but also against the Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta variants.
After all, who does not want to see an end to the COVID-19 pandemic? Who does not want to resume face-to-face meetings with close relatives and friends to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries? Who does not want to enjoy weekends with family in leisure resorts, or simply dine out and window-shop in malls? Those were the simple joys that had been dashed to the ground by the massive, overwhelming shadow of the pandemic.
Even as the Omicron-driven upsurge continues, many hope that it would soon reach its peak and then decline steeply – as shown by the South African experience. Meantime, we need to remain steadfast in faith and hope. Pope Francis’ pre-Easter message in 2020 provides insights that inspire courage and perseverance in this time of affliction:
“We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other...How many people every day are exercising patience and offering hope, taking care to sow not panic but a shared responsibility. How many fathers, mothers, grandparents and teachers are showing our children, in small everyday gestures, how to face up to and navigate a crisis by adjusting their routines, lifting their gaze and fostering prayer. How many are praying, offering and interceding for the good of all. Prayer and quiet service: these are our victorious weapons.”