Confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Philippines as of this writing: 230
This is only my 4th day of being confined at home (since I still went to work last Monday) and I’m already getting anxious.
My unease had nothing to do with boredom or restlessness but more about starting to dread the whole uncertainty of it. See, unless you are among the filthy rich who can afford not to work for the rest of your life, you’d be stupid to think of this worldwide health crisis as a momentary “sweet escape”. It’s arrogant to assume that this will not affect you one way or another.
It’s a month-long mass quarantine and we’re just in the first week. I should have known that having a lot of idle time can send my brain in overthinking-mode but hear me out as I have good reasons to worry. I’m not just being a Johnny Raincloud here; there are so many things running through my mind about it.
Up to now, the WFH arrangement hasn’t been ironed out for our team; no word if we’re paid or not for these days or if they’ll deduct our leaves for it. One thing’s for sure, the option to come to the office with special provisions like free accommodation or shuttle service has been scratched not only because it’s risky, but it’s also not feasible.
My older brother and I are employed by the same company, but they had been working from home since Monday on his usual graveyard shift from 9PM to 6AM. Of course, I have to understand that such arrangements are not easy across all departments but they can’t just make me sit back and wait. There’s always that looming threat of being seen by your company as redundant and dispensable. There’s this thought hovering – what if they decide to just let us go?
For the travel and tourism industry which I happen to belong to, they said that once the outbreak is over, it could take up to 10 months before the industry could recover. Just the thought of that makes me sick to my stomach.
I’ve been working fresh out of college since 1997 and aside from a couple of months of being unemployed in between switching jobs, I can say that I’ve been working for almost 23 years now and I don’t have any plans of stopping. At 43, even an experienced employee like me doesn’t automatically get a fair chance. If this crisis turns ugly, I don’t think many companies can even stay afloat to hire people.
Then there’s this study on how the case is expected to surge even with the ECQ. That the Philippines is only at the beginning of the crisis and that epidemic might not even peak until June (one study says it could be as late as October). God forbid, but if this is true then we’re all in this for the long haul.
In the meantime, you’re lucky that your company is paying your accommodations and even giving you a hazard pay for every day you come to the office for the whole month of the ECQ, but have you ever considered what will happen if they extended the quarantine indefinitely?
Just this morning, I read about how some people, in just a week, had gotten so desperate that they’re already threatening to loot groceries and houses of the rich just to get by (it’s later on confirmed as fake news, thank goodness, but it CAN happen). Social and civil unrest is inevitable in a prolonged lockdown. There will be unprecedented anarchy.
More than everything I’ve mentioned, the basic concern itself is the health and wellbeing of everyone. If a lot of us get infected by the virus, I don’t think our health facilities can handle it. A widespread community epidemic continues to be my biggest fear because it can result in us not being able to go out of our houses at all (total lockdown) and we’d all depend on government rations and that sort of thing.
Our way of life, as we know it, will definitely change drastically.
I don’t mean to be a downer, I am just stating some of what could happen if we are unable to flatten the curve. I know how important not to lose faith during these trying times but we must also consider the grim possibilities. As from what I read, “You can't predict luck, and you certainly can't predict good luck. It would be far more prudent to prepare for a scenario based not on optimism, but on realistic pessimism.”
I’m not ready for the worst and I don’t think I’ll ever be only because nothing has prepared us from something like this.
0 comments:
Post a Comment