DAY 23: ECQ

It is somewhat inevitable ... and logical.  The Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) will most likely be extended.  And it should.  Better yet, most of the people agree.  We are not yet safe.

How authentic are the numbers of people infected by COVID19?  

Are these mere estimates because of the simplicity of the sampling of those tested?  Considering the number of people who have tested and the sheer density of the population of the metropolis, how accurate are we in providing a true profile of the extent of infection?

Besides the number of recoveries vis a vis the number of infected may not be that encouraging.  Yes, there is always the advantage of youth over old age for someone to survive the virus ... but that does not mean that younger victims do not succumb of the deadliness of corona.  For instance, in New York City, the greater number of victims (and casualties) are not necessarily seniors but people in their prime who thought they were too young to die of this pandemic.

In our country as well, there are younger people who fall ill and perish with the virus because of weak immune systems or pre-disposed illnesses.  

The bottom line is that nobody is still safe ... and unless we are assured or made secure that the chances of infection have diminished ( called flattening the curve ) then that is the only time we can consider lifting the quarantine or moving into a modified version wherein certain areas may be given more freedom of movement, certain business reopened and mass testing can be finally implemented.

The problem of COVID19 was and will never be that simple.  Why?  Because people of responsibility as well as those responsible either belittled its potency and extent of danger --- or they were never up front, downright honest in sharing the facts about the virus with the public.  

If ever it got to this point, then it is because some people of responsibility really underestimated the situation  or put other interests ahead of that of the safety of the general public.   We all hope that it was simply a case of carelessness or even stupidity --- and not because leaders were serving other interests that were self-protective of their power and not the health of their constituents.

Here are some points we learned about this virus --- which is quite unique and indeed novel so that common knowledge does not carry a vaccine to neutralize it.

(1) The virus can cause great physical danger but more so provoke fear. Half the danger of this virus is the proliferation of theories, assumptions and fake news about its nature.

Right from the very start, social media fanned panic in the virus not because certain important information was not disseminated but because of the bloated fear sparked from the start.

When it was all about this mutant virus from a bat and a pangolin from a wet market in China, the danger was not imminent.  Wuhan was too far away.

We do not even remember the history of SARS more than a decade ago because we did not feel that epidemic hit our country.  But this case was different since the information being released was that the virus was already controlled, not transferable from human to human and restricted only to a certain city in the mainland.

Sad enough, it is this miscalculation that the virus will not spread that created greater havoc.  

When leaders sputter that "this is just another kind of flu"or "drink your vitamin C and boost your immunity and you will be ok ", then you know you are either going to glide through it or end up right in the bottom of the pit.  Ladies and gentleman, welcome to the pits. 

We were told that it was OK not to wear masks as long as you are not sick. 

We were assured that it was not airborne and you can only get it if some infected baboon coughs or sneezes right at your face (it's the droplets, Honey ... just the droplets!) or when you touch surface where the viruses land upon someone's nasal spraying.  

Then later on we were terrified to find out that it can live on paper and cardboard for 24 hours --- and on plastic and steel for even longer.  

We were told DO NOT TOUCH YOUR FACE so much so that each time you find yourself scratching your nose or rubbing your eyes, you scream "PARANOIA!" because you are sure you have allowed those hideous little monsters into your system.

Some wise men insist: STOP WATCHING THE NEWS, KEEP AWAY FROM SOCIAL MEDIA. Yes, it has reached the level of the harmful as this did not increase your AWARENESS but somehow instigated NEUROSIS.  As much as you wanted to keep away from information platforms, you could not help but look.  It felt like the bottleneck of traffic in a highway where everybody is curious to see how an accident looks.

Just recently news came out that seventeen people have been confirmed infected from a posh village in the south.  The common denominator was not travel or exposure to somebody sick or symptomatic but ... of all things: A SUPERMARKET.

Naturally, the knee jerk reaction was for the information to spread like wildfire among the suburbanites. Suddenly all the Suburban Mommies were rushing to their gallons of alcohol and rubbing their hands like Lady Macbeth.

There was even a rumor that a circular to residents have been passed around warning about the said grocery as a possible source of the viral infection.  This was never confirmed --- that such a circular existed or that the said establishment was the source of alleged affliction. 

But it is the panic --- it is the adrenaline brought by fear that turns speculations into truth.

Of course all that jibberish was so damaging to the supermarket. But in critical moments like these, it is fear that is as dangerous as the virus. We frighten ourselves to death out of the guise of playing safe.  And maybe we should be terrified in order to keep safe.

Yes, we can be cautious and careful but when we let fear supersede reason, we have chaos.  In the absence of plans and directions, chaos seems to be so ... tenable.

(2) If we want this to be over, then we have to work on it to be over. 
It has been three weeks since the implementation of the Enhanced Community Quarantine and still there are some of our countrymen who think this is a joke ... and never follow the rules as if to prove to the world that they come from the Planet Krypton.

Look, without resorting to that famous line that shall be a benchmark of 2020's social history ("Stay home ... you mother---rs!") , it is a need to remind others about the value of social distancing. 

Keeping away from each other so as not to multiply the infection is the only way we can beat a virus without a vaccine.  And, yes, by law of human beings --- culling is not an option either.

Sige. We opened this really badly which was why the daily wage earners and the thousands of commuters had to literally squeeze themselves into every available space to get to work and then get home.  

Shall we cut the excuses and admit that we just threw everybody into the barbecue pit by announcing the quarantine without giving them time to prepare or even options (such as alternative modes of transportation, sources of daily income or even a systematic way of government assistance)?  If ever there was hysteria at the start of the quarantine, then it was because we were not prepared. And yet they all decided, "O, sige na nga ... 'Tara let's!"

That was three weeks ago and we should have settled.

We should have gotten into the groove of quarantined life.  

Even if some of us are brave enough to go out there into the world of asymptomatics, we still have to be aware and practice the rules of social distancing.  It is different for a grocery check-out girl to sit behind the cashier and meet people with her face mask every day because she has to earn her living from somebody who is gallivanting around the streets because she wants to commune with the urban universe.

It is different when you stay in line and wait for hours outside a grocery because only so many are allowed inside from people behaving as if nothing has changed except for the fact that everybody is wearing a face mask.  

A friend of mine posted a scene from a wet market and I could not believe the amount of violation taking place.  Somebody even pointed out, "Tingnan mo .... tatawa-tawa pa yung isa at nananadiyang makipagsiksikan sa mga tao para patunayan na hindi siya takot sa corona virus!"    Wait a minute. Iba ito. This is not even called defiance. It is called stupidity.

As long as there are some of us who equate being pasaway with pagpapaka-astig ... as long as we keep equating defiance of rules of decorum as a sign of strength, then we will never win this battle.  

Thin is that line between courage and foolishness.  We have a tendency to mistake one with the other.

(3) An extension of the quarantine requires more credible planning to point to solutions.
In Twitter I posted a survey if people think that the ECQ should be extended.

Thankfully I was flooded with a lot of answers.  They all agreed that there should be an extension of the quarantine.  But all of the replies were equally unanimous in pointing out the following:

- It would be useless to extend the quarantine if there is no mass testing.  Come to think of it, why is there still no blueprint or plan for mass testing?  

This leads to an even more vital point.

- Ano ba talaga ang plano, Tatay?

Ok, so we know we need to stay at home for maybe another two more weeks --- but what happens while we are at home and more so, what are you guys in the government doing about it?

A sidebar: Utang na loob! This is not The Battle of the Mayors. This is not a reality show where mayors are given challenges, eliminated and humiliated while others are applauded and practically deified.  

If Vico Sotto and some mayors are doing good jobs, it is because they are doing their jobs.  More important, they are doing their jobs well and for their constituents at hindi para umepal.  There is a substantial difference between a dedicated worker and a practitioner of self-promotion. This leads us back to a very vital point: while people are locked into their homes, unable to earn their daily wages, who is going to take care of them?

The extension of the quarantine will be useless unless there is a definitive plan as to how help will be distributed, how much help will be given and how this help can trickle down to the people who really need it.

Yes, we all want to live but livelihood is an equal pre-requisite to human survival.  It is not enough that you are breathing: you must be able to sustain your life and for those who depend on you for their daily sustenance.

Lastly, there is ...

(4) The solution comes after the quarantine and the pandemic.  What are we going to do with what remains after?
This will be over.  We do not know when but it will be over.

But have people really given some thought as to what kind of world we will be finding the moment we step out of our homes and back to reality?

If people think we are going back to the usual programming when the quarantines are eased out, then they are in for a surprise.

I do not want to elaborate the bleak scenario that awaits many of us.  I can more or less imagine how it will be for my work --- in the entertainment industry and school.

I foresee that we cannot go into production immediately after quarantine because it will take time for the government to allow an assembly of more than twenty people to be working on location or in a studio.  I also anticipate the even poorer attendance of people watching movies in cinemas since this would again require the gathering of too many people for social distancing.  Besides, cinemas are not priority venues to resume business.

Entertainment shall be centered on what we have all been doing while locked up in our houses: Netflix, IFlix, Amazon Prime, IWant.  We are stuck on YouTube watching podcasts or even Facebook Live.  Entertainment has been restructured not only in consumption but also in production.

The same goes with schools: we do not know when schools can possibly reopen. We cannot risk the lives of the kids to go back into that concrete jungle to wiggle their way into the coaches of the MRT or wait in line for their jeepneys to bring them to their destinations.  Major adjustments must be made to enable schools to be operational again.

We just realized that long distance learning or alternative classes via online lectures cannot function effectively in a Third World Country with one of the worst internet services available.  Not all kids have access to good internet --- and boy, were we not knocked off our feet when somebody pointed out that Zoom is being considered a malaware by some companies?  How many of us were in Zoom meetings just to be able sustain during the start of the quarantine only to find out that it was palpak.

The point is that the end of the quarantine is not the solution: it will open an entirely different box of problems.  And these are problems that need to be addressed today even before they confront us with such viciousness.

Are we going to be caught flatfooted again with the economic backlash that months of business paralysis has caused not only the nation but also the world?

Unless we are all in this together, we may survive the virus but there is no assurance we are coming out alive.