One year of quarantine

The banner headline of The FREEMAN a year ago today, March 16, read: “Cebu City now under quarantine”. Yes, it has been a year since we got our first taste of quarantine.

It was a Monday, and while technically there was no lockdown yet, the city had set up border checkpoints and Cebu’s air and seaports started to restrict the entry of travelers, in particular those from Negros Island, following the death there of a town councilor who had contracted COVID-19 when he was in Manila. At that time, people were just “strongly advised” to stay in their homes and avoid the malls, community centers, commercial areas, and other public areas, unless it was necessary to get basic commodities and services.

Three days before that fateful day, I attended my last in-person meeting at work. In a room filled with more or less 12 people that Friday morning, there were only two of us who wore a face mask. I repeat, this was three days before the community quarantine was imposed.

Both of us were asked, "Are you sick? Because if you are sick, you must stay home." Of course, we were not sick. The other person wearing a mask was a biologist, while I was just a lawyer who happened to have a voracious habit of reading scientific journals and current events. In other words, the two of us with face masks were probably the only persons in that room who realized the gravity of the situation. True enough, that afternoon classes and work were suspended. And the rest was, and is actually still, history being written.

No, I don’t mean to beat my breast with pride and say “Well, I told you so.” If it indeed sounded that way, I’m sorry. For more than a month prior to the imposition of the quarantine, I had been at odds with many people who then insisted that wearing a protective mask was an act of paranoia. They said these masks should be reserved for use by healthcare workers. For more than a month, I also kept wondering, “Why is the global supply chain for masks still not reacting to this?”

Today, there are no more lockdowns, and that should be the case because economically we are already scraping the bottom of the cauldron. We may have learned to live with the constraints of having a mask around our face, but many people still take all those medical warnings with a pinch of salt.

There are silver linings, to be sure. Not a few people I know got new and better jobs in the IT and digital-enabled service sectors. This trend may not be merely anecdotal, as these pandemic-hardened sectors are projected to grow by 7% to 10% through 2022 according to conservative estimates. A sharp rebound of the US economy will also buttress this growth.

If we can just be more patient, we can look forward to better days ahead. But we should not ignore the facts about this pandemic. The more dangerous phase of this pandemic is actually now, when any more talk about COVID-19 and people either smirk or slump in their seats, drained from the long haul where a break from reality is really nice. Cebu City has breached the 200 mark anew in the number of new cases last Friday, with 26 recorded deaths so far this month. In Metro Manila, the surge in COVID-19 cases is pushing the capacity of several major hospitals towards collapse.

Remember, “the darkest hour is just before the dawn.”