"Would the few hours of celebration this year be worth the risk that a vulnerable member of the family might get infected and fall seriously ill?"
Metro Manila mayors have recommended a ban on all holiday parties in the National Capital Region to prevent a resurgence of COVID-19 infections. They are also suggesting that the general community quarantine (GCQ) that is in effect in Metro Manila until Oct. 31 be extended to the end of the year.
These recommendations come as the number of new cases of COVID-19 are declining from the high levels of 3,000 to 4,000 a day some weeks ago to under 2,000 a day.
Researchers who are monitoring the pandemic also note that the reproduction number—or the number of people that an infected person can infect–has dropped to 0.70, down from a high 2 or 3 at the start of the pandemic.
The recommendations also come as the government is pushing to relax restrictions on social distancing on public transport and to shorten curfew hours as a way to restart the economy, which has been battered by one of the longest lockdowns in the world.
Amid all these positive developments, the ban on Christmas parties may appear at first blush to be a case of overkill—an aggravation to the pandemic fatigue that seems to be setting in, characterized by people who wear their masks on their chin, or security guards or store personnel who no longer bother to check the temperature of visitors, or restaurant guests who, sans masks, talk loudly, heedless of the potentially dangerous spray and spittle this entails.
But given the resurgence of COVID-19 infections in many parts of Europe, its documented spread by infected people who are asymptomatic, and the absence of an effective vaccine or even therapeutics, caution—even an abundance of it–still seems to be the order of the day.
It would be foolhardy at this point to host a Christmas party—even if just for one’s extended family—without knowing if one of the guests might be infected and asymptomatic—and therefore contagious.
Would the few hours of celebration this year be worth the risk that a vulnerable member of the family might get infected and fall seriously ill?
Those who say they are tired of the coronavirus and all these restrictions can draw solace from knowing that in all likelihood, after a vaccine becomes widely available, there will be more Christmas parties to come in succeeding years. They would certainly be more worth celebrating then, if everyone got through this season healthy and unscathed.