Air of hopelessness

“A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success.”

—Elbert Hubbard

By Alex P. Vidal

SOME people are getting impatient and there seems to be an air of hopelessness hovering in many parts of the Philippines now that the situation appears to be “not getting better” in as far as the COVID-19 pandemic is concerned.

Instead of seeing the decline of COVID-19 cases after the second quarter of 2020, there seems to be no stopping the pandemic from further bringing sufferings and sadness to the people.

It seems COVID-19 will stay as long as it is still 2020.

The bad thing is there is no assurance it will be fully contained by 2021, not until the vaccine has been discovered and mass-produced quickly.  

We are now entering the third quarter and COVID-19 cases continue to rise instead of going down.

And the trending is worldwide with the United States still leading the pack with nearly 3 million cases and nearly 150,000 deaths.

Hospitals’ critical care capacity in the Philippines is near the “danger zone” at 70 percent, according to the Department of Health (DOH).

Several hospitals in the country have already reportedly stopped accepting patients with coronavirus disease.   

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We are glad that here in New York, which used to be the epicenter since March, “things are improving” and the state is now going to be held up as the model for the rest of the United States because of its “remarkable road to recovery”.

New York was hit first, while the virus and how to treat it were still poorly understood, and New York City is an international travel hub with densely packed neighborhoods and a heavily trafficked public-transit system. 

It got hammered.

The outbreaks in other parts of the US aren’t anything like what happened in New York, at least not yet. 

What others states, notably Florida, Arizona, Texas and California are trying to do is avoid New York’s fate, even as they are lectured about the superiority of the Empire State’s approach.

The positivity rate—the percentage of tests coming back positive—has increased in all of these places, and in Arizona has reportedly gone above 20 percent. 

The seven-day moving average for the positivity rate reached an astronomical 50 percent during the worst of the outbreak in New York.

Deaths are also reportedly going up in all these states, but the scale so far is completely different from what New York experienced. 

About 32,500 people have died in New York.

About 4,300 people have died in Florida, a state of comparable population. 

In Texas and California, both bigger states, about 3,300 and 7,000 people have died.

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Meanwhile, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced July 14 the actions taken in its ongoing response effort to the COVID-19 pandemic.

FDA scientists have identified specific areas of the so-called spike proteins on the surface of the COVID-19-causing virus that appear to be key to triggering strong protective antibody responses in rabbits exposed to the virus. 

The virus uses one part of the spike protein to attach to a cell and another to fuse with the cell membrane, enabling the virus to infect the cell. 

The scientists studied antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins, which could help inform vaccine design by increasing our understanding of the various triggered antibody responses.

As of mid-June, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused more than eight million cases of infection and approximately 450,000 deaths globally, making the development of safe and effective vaccines to prevent this disease a priority. 

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo)