Faith in Filipinos

By Alex P. Vidal

 

“Faith and prayer are the vitamins of the soul; man cannot live in health without them.” – Mahalia Jackson

AMID the depressing situation in the Philippines where 11,101 additional COVID-19 cases were recorded on April 17, bringing the total number of infections to 926,052, let’s continue to pin our hopes on the Filipinos’ courage and resiliency.

There’s no turning back now but to bravely face the gargantuan health crisis with strong optimism and positive outlook.

Blaming game explodes from time to time but at the end of the day, the situation demands a collective effort to combat and neutralize the coronavirus as a nation.

No one should lose enthusiasm now that we are hopefully in the homestretch of the pandemic as health authorities expedite the vaccinations of people around the world.

Active cases in the Philippines are now 203,710 or 22 percent of the total while recoveries reached 799, pushing the total to 706,532. There were

72 deaths, bringing the total to 15,810.

We shouldn’t quarrel with our government for its apparent lousy handling of the crisis, but we must be free to criticize government officials who are incompetent and sleeping on their job.

It’s our moral obligation to call their attention and berate them if they pretend they know everything but in reality they are inutile and part of the huge problem.

The Filipinos actually aren’t alone.

Almost at the time time, Brazil recorded 67,636 additional confirmed cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours, along with 2,929 deaths from COVID-19, their Health Ministry confirmed on April 17.

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Brazil has reportedly registered more than 13.9 million cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 371,678, according to ministry data.

India is also on the same stage. It recorded more than 200,000 new COVID-19 cases for a third day as capital New Delhi reportedly faces an acute shortage of hospital beds.

New Delhi reportedly recorded 24,000 coronavirus cases in a 24-hour period.

In the United States, COVID-19cases and hospitalizations were surging in Pennsylvania, as state officials warned of the impact of trends seen across the country: increased travel, relaxing restrictions and the spread of more contagious virus variants.

Pennsylvania reported an average of 4,922 cases a day, up from roughly 2,515 a month ago, according to a New York Times database. Hospitalizations have also reportedly climbed by about 16 percent in the past two weeks, and the state now has one of the highest per capita daily case counts in the United States.

Deaths, which tend to lag behind infections by weeks, have also reportedly started to increase again after plunging from the state’s high of an average of 222 in mid-January, now averaging about 37 a day.

State and national health officials worried about the spread of more contagious virus variants, particularly the B.1.1.7 variant first found in Britain.

That variant was estimated to be about 60 percent more contagious and 67 percent more deadly than the original version.

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If we see tremendous improvements in our fingernails at least a month after taking Vitamin D and Omega-3 Fish Oil, that means 36 of our organs are well taken care of. Thanks to medical science for the education…Enoki, chanterelle, portabella, and shitake are all types of gourmet edible mushrooms…MEANING OF A.M. AND P.M.–A.M. means ante meridiem, Latin for “before noon.” P.M. means post meridiem, Latin for “afternoon”…I’ll be at the Citi Field in Flushing, Queens for my first dose of Pfizer vaccine at 11:45 in the morning on April 19.

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