‘This is another ECQ season that nobody wants, and we hope that this will not be the last in the longest lockdown on Earth.’
TIME seems to be in an endless loop when you are trying to survive through a pandemic, especially in the Philippines. Once again, the National Capital Region is under the tightest of restrictions. Cases and positivity rates are up once again, possibly driven by the scary Delta variant of COVID-19. The bad news is, perhaps we may never know the true extent of the spread of the Delta variant, as it requires samples to be sent for genome sequencing to the Philippine Genome Center. Sadly, the current capacity of the Center only allows it to sequence a small percentage of the positive cases. (On a related note: I hope our lawmakers remember the PH Genome Center and allocate more budget for its improvement. Just another one of those non-sexy but scientific capacities that we ignored until we realized too late that it is very significant.)
The only silver lining this time around is that some lead time was given by the end of July, leading to the actual implementation of the enhanced community quarantine. Of course, the succeeding days were marked by inconsistencies in the rules to be followed, especially when it came to the allowed movement of authorized persons outside of residence. These flip-flops cause confusion among the populace, who are well-meaning and want to follow the rules, but are usually left scratching their heads due to insufficient or inaccurate information doled out by talking heads. A year and five months since the declaration of the first ECQ, and they still haven’t gotten this right.
Friends and acquaintances who run businesses are worried of more disastrous effects if the ECQ is extended beyond two weeks. Apparently, most employers were quite generous with support packages for their employees back in 2020, because of cash earned from a profitable 2019. The year 2021 is a different scenario: with profits bottoming out and constant expenses, very few can afford to sustain giving support to their employees. One friend of mine also complained that operating expenses have shot up because of regular testing: according to him, he has spent a little over P300,000 for testing in order for his team of three to continue working. It’s a struggle to earn enough to cover salaries and other expenses, let alone make any profit for a rainy day.
The chaotic scenes in some vaccination centers are symptomatic of people’s fear of being unable to earn a living; if you remember, people showed up in droves after President Duterte himself said that unvaccinated people will be brought back to their homes if found on the street. The administration fobs this off on fake news that supposedly circulated about unvaccinated people disqualified from receiving aid, but we all know that the President himself uttered these words himself. So yes, the President’s words do matter when it comes to public discourse, which make these attempts to pass these utterances off as jokes all the more frustrating.
The additional complication is that election season is upon us, even if the official campaign period is six months away. Everyone and their uncle will already be busy with their election/reelection efforts, and those in appointive positions might already be looking for softer landings outside of government. At best, we can hope that there are some brave souls left whose focus is to continue to push efforts to improve our vaccination rates, our hospital capacities, our equipment inventories. It sounds like a broken record, it’s true; but the need to repeat will not be necessary if citizens only see that these measures have been actively taken and implemented by the administration. This is another ECQ season that nobody wants, and we hope that this will not be the last in the longest lockdown on Earth.
