It won’t change overnight. Don’t expect to go back to the way we were. Things will be different and will not come so easily.
As You might have seen the past few days, new covid cases are sprouting everywhere, even in unexpected remote places like Mankayan, Benguet or Suquib, Besao, Mountain Province. All the towns surrounding Baguio City have covid positive cases now.
A few days ago, Mountain Province was the only area that was covid-free in the Cordillera. In no time, before you could even say covid-free again, the province had its first case. There will be more as we try to emerge from the lockdown. And our livelihood will continue to be stifled by the lack of movement. Many are already getting angry judging from their comments on social media.
But no one in a position of power who is in his right mind can just order the freeing of the economy or the lifting of quarantine rules. We just might readily be overwhelmed by the disease. Covid-19’s deadly ability to spread should make us all afraid. Better still, very afraid.
While many of the new positives were asymptomatic and could afford a casual attitude towards their infection, woe to those who have weaker immune systems who might have dealt with them..
So our decision makers are in a bind. They have to balance the need of people to go out and make a living, and the fact that restricting people’s movement is the only way to stop or slow down the virus. It is so easy to spout invectives against those who are restricting us, but to just lift the restrictions can result in mass murder.
It is a tight rope they have to thread and they must not think in a simplistic way about our situation. They have to be given some slack as to whatever perceived errors they committed or for whatever shortcomings as long as they are working hard or trying their best for the common good. Let us sacrifice some of our comfort zones in the hope we will not see any of our loved ones get hit by the virus.
Instead of fault finding, let us volunteer even just our one cent worth for the amelioration of our situation, or give whatever resources we can spare for those who need these most.
And for those of us who need not spend sleepless nights on how we can collectively cross the bridge to the new normal, we should consider ourselves very lucky.**