Metro Manila Community Quarantine - Day 137
The Palace owes the nation two announcements:
- Whether or not Friday is a holiday
- What changes will be made (if any) for the various states of quarantine across the country
As always, we seem to be waiting for the eleventh hour before making an announcement. And you can probably put money on yet another midnight announcement tomorrow, which will really be one of those annoying televised meetings. So it's less about making a policy declaration and more making the country listen to the President ask inane questions of the IATF and the DOH.
More and more people in my social circles appear to be catching COVID-19 despite how long we've all been in quarantine. I'm not sure what vectors were responsible for these particular infections (it feels rude to ask) but needless to say the virus is still very much going around and prevention measures aren't cutting it. Even with people only going out when absolutely necessary (which sadly includes work), people are still risking infection.
On a related front, I've also had more than a few conversations with people looking for alternate employment to help them get through quarantine. So many people haven't had work in months while others have lost their jobs or were retrenched during the lockdown period as businesses continue to feel the squeeze. Our company hasn't had to let go of people, thankfully, but we have opted to give up our physical office, which is kind of a big deal. Everyone is hurting in this economic slowdown but just lifting quarantines before things are actually under control is a recipe for disaster as well.
This is not exactly the kind of environment anyone would want to mark special events like birthday, but I'm not getting a good feeling about how August is going to pan out. I do my best to keep my hopes up, remain generally optimistic while fighting through quarantine blues, but it has been getting harder and harder to stay afloat. But we just gotta keep swimming - or at the very least keep treading water.
Ugh, I'm already mixing metaphors. Let's end things here for now.
Comments
Post a Comment