In the recently concluded Management Committee (MANCOM) meeting of the various department heads of the city government, City Mayor Benjamin Magalong urged everyone to start preparing for any eventuality directly related to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic even as he raised calls for extra vigilance against the possibility of the COVID Delta and Lambda variant entering the city.
While there has yet been no validated report that the Delta or Lambda has made inroads to the city, Mayor Magalong already called on everybody to start making preparations particularly in the area of facilities and equipment needed to manage and cope with any surge in COVID-19 cases. In fact in a recent notice posted in the public information office Facebook account of the city, Dr. Rowena Galpo, head of the City Health Services Office, notified the public that the city government is soliciting the assistance of the private sector in making preparations for the “more severe and more contagious variants of COVID-19, particularly the Delta and Lambda variants”, and that part of the preparations to be made is to ensure “that the city will have enough supply of oxygen and oxygen tanks in anticipation of increased hospitalizations due to the new variants”.
For those who still think that the Delta and Lambda variants are more or less the same as the previous COVID-19, variants medical experts are one in saying that these two types of new variants are highly transmissible, meaning they can quickly spread from one person to another, and the severity of infection is much higher than the earlier and previous mutations such as the Alpha variant which originated in the UK and the Beta variant which has its origin in South Africa.
And to those who still mistakenly believe that these new variants should not be a cause of grave concern they need only to watch and read the news about how other countries, even here in South East Asia, are already hard pressed in their struggle to manage and contain the spread of the delta variant in their territories.
In fact the mayor made an astute observation that instead of simply being bystanders in witnessing how the Delta variant, and possibly even the emerging Lambda variant, are presently ravaging other countries, preparations should already be undertaken to cushion the impact of these variants once they enter the city. This is foresight and advanced thinking by a crisis manager.
We can only hope and pray that somehow a miracle of sorts will happen and the Delta and Lambda variants will never reach the city. But that is wishful thinking. In all probability and without any intention of being a doomsayer, it might only be a couple of weeks before we learn that these variants have already somehow made their presence felt in the locality. And so with this in mind, it is only right that we should hope for the best but always plan for the worst.
If it is any measure of comfort at all, we are still fortunate enough to have someone at the top attempting mightily to stay ahead of the curve despite scant resources and limited elbow room within which to operate.
In the military, they have a saying which goes “no plan survives first contact in a combat situation,” but there is also another saying that says, “failing to plan is planning to fail,” or for those chess enthusiasts who often believe that “a bad plan is better than no plan at all”.
For us in the city, the mayor has already made clear that there must be a plan to counter these new COVID-19 variants, and it is already being done. Now in the event that somehow these plans are later on found out to be a bit inadequate, then all that must be done is to improvise and take advantage of any opportunity that presents itself during the prevailing situation.
