EDITORIAL - It isn’t over yet

The numbers of those infected with COVD-19 in Cebu City seem to be up again.

According to a report in this newspaper, from 187 active cases last week there are now 306 active cases.

Councilor Joel Garganera, who is also Emergency Operations Center deputy chief implementer, insists that even with these figures the city remains in the “pink of health”.

“As of now, we are in the pink of health so far as isolation for asymptomatic patients is concerned,” he was quoted as saying.

Even with this assurance there are some of us who cannot help but worry we are headed back the way we came from; the increasing number of cases and, more importantly, more rigid quarantine restrictions.

Look, the only reason why the numbers are increasing is because people keep getting infected. Why they get infected is because they either got careless or their environment was so full of risk that the virus got to them despite all the precautions they have taken.

Considering what we have seen these past few weeks --with more and more people disregarding the established protocols, more and more people leaving their homes for nonessential trips, more and more people not wearing masks or wearing them improperly-- it is most likely the former.

We have seen this before. It happened in the National Capital Region, it happened in Japan, and it is still happening in several places in Europe that are now seeing a resurgence in COVID-19 cases. It was when they dropped their guard, when they relaxed the rules, that the virus struck again.

People still don’t seem to understand that we are not out of the woods yet. The rules might have been relaxed a bit, but people are still getting infected out there and spreading the virus to others. Some will die because of this.

So before the numbers go up even more we should realize that the virus is still out there. It isn’t over yet.