To us humans, there is hardly anything that we are inexorably attracted to. Some may argue there is, using as example perhaps, fatal attraction to someone of the opposite sex, but that’d be just a figure of speech. The truth is that anyone could get over that kind of attraction if they really wanted to.
To get to the heart of it, what I’m saying is that there is nothing that can draw our attention so irresistibly that we wouldn’t mind even if it killed us.
We are simply not programmed that way. We are unlike the lower animals that are driven by instinct so they couldn’t even tell when they are facing imminent danger.
I have said that we really should start learning to live with CoViD-19 and its many variants. What else can we do when it seems that the best minds in the world could not find a way to eradicate the virus?
It will eventually end up like the common flu that we have lived with for over a hundred years now, and yet, still claims hundreds of thousands of lives each year. The vaccine for it is the only respite we could hope for.
But better yet, avoiding catching the virus would be our best defense. Since the pandemic started, we’ve had so much practice with the CoViD-19 protocols that by now, there should be no more doubts in our minds about what we should do.
Our government has made the fight against CoViD-19 top priority, they say. It has top billing in all facets of our present society. There is nowhere we can look without seeing something about CoViD-19. There are posters everywhere that remind us to wash our hands, wear masks, and to keep our distance from everyone else. These are the most basic actions we could do to keep from being infected.
There are some still who strictly take it upon themselves to come out of their houses only when necessary to further avoid getting sick. It might be a bit extreme, but as long as it only affects them, and no one else, who’s complaining?
I was one of those who welcomed the news of the lifting of the CoViD-19 restrictions. It was a sign that, at least, the powers-that-be had accepted the reality that restrictions only served to drive our economy down, while CoViD cases remained at the same average levels throughout with no signs of waning.
There is no fool-proof solution yet to keep CoViD-19 out of the spaces we all share. It will sneak in no matter what precautions we have in place.
Going on two years into the pandemic now, we’ve seen that happen over and over again. Heeding precautionary measures, and getting vaccinated are all we have to be able to enjoy a semblance of normality.
And those, along with our resolve to adhere to health protocols should be enough to stifle the spread of the virus.
The government’s responsibility is to continue to inculcate in people the need to follow the minimum health protocols–WEAR A MASK, WASH HANDS, KEEP DISTANCE.
While we keep hearing our government officials give out reminders about the health protocols, some of their actions betray their advice.
I don’t know if they say all they say because that’s what they think the people want to hear, or they simply are taking the liberty because they think that no one can see through it all.
I’ve got to hand it to the local government officials to say two different things under the same breath. That is very difficult to do, and at best, will only produce incoherent sounds.
Try it! Say love and hate under one breath. Pretend you love but you really hate, and express both at the same time. Well?
In the days that followed the lifting of restrictions, the City cranked out reminders to not forget the health protocols. According to City officials, we must not forget our health protocols especially when the restrictions have been lifted, because complacency could get us in trouble with the virus.
But almost at the same time that I became aware of that, I also heard them say that the City is installing hundreds of lighted doves in Pantawan 3. This was supposed to transform Pantawan 3 into a place so attractive that Dumagueteños will have a common place to congregate during the holidays.
Well, that’s exactly what it had become–a place so festive at night that it has become irresistible to entire families. It has succeeded in attracting huge crowds that, according to some newspaper reports, number in the few thousands on any given day.
Pantawan 3 is 1.7 hectares or 17,000 square meters. Let’s say there are roughly 3,000 people there in the evenings — that’s one person per 5.67 square meters.
But since people tend to congregate in clusters, what you see there at night is a crowd so jampacked that Mr. CoViD could have a field day contaminating the hapless visitors.
What is the City going to do about that? Or are they even worried they may have created a super-spreader venue?
This is not a once-in-a-while concert but a daily occurrence! It is probably not too late to do something about it.
Why, they could probably take away a few hundred doves to make the place less festive, and lessen its appeal, or they could police the area, and instruct visitors to strictly stay one-point-something meters apart the whole time they’re there!
Whatever they decide on doing, they have to do it soon, or become busy computing CoViD-19 statistics.
Insects, especially moths, are attracted to light but for a different reason. Light simply messes with their navigation, skewing their flight trajectories. It would look to us that they are inexorably attracted to it, and such attraction often gets them killed by the light itself (flame, heat, electrified grid).
That’s why bug zappers work really well. While these insects can’t avoid flying into the light, people can discern danger when they see it.
While Pantawan 3’s lights pose no inherent danger to humans, CoViD-19 does. So when the lights attract people to cluster so close to each other, the danger posed by CoViD-19 rises exponentially.
Pantawan 3, for a time now, has probably become a hotbed of viral infection. With the new Omicron variant whose strength and spread are not very clear yet, these nightly crowds at Pantawan 3 are simply inviting disaster.
If RT-PCR tests were free, I’d say there’d have been more cases the past couple of weeks than for a similar period in the past.
So you see, the government warns us against crowding but provides enough attractions to encourage it–all under one breath.
Because of that, their success might also be two-fold. They’ll succeed in making Pantawan 3 a respite for those tired of “being always careful” in the pandemic-prone areas. Consciously or unconsciously, they would have also succeeded in speeding up the spread of C-19 within the populace by creating a reason for them to crowd.
With the way the situation is now, it could be a case of jumping from the frying pan and into the fire.
Are we heading toward a “Merry” Christmas or a “Gloomy” one? And if it will indeed be “Merry,” would the new year be a “Happy” one or a “Sad” one?
I’m rooting for “Merry” and “Happy” myself. How about you?
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