Let’s Not Be Complacent

If the reports of the Department of Health are true, we are now at the lower risk of Covid-19 averaging 500-600 positive cases for the past 4 or 5 days. One thing though, they still could not locate the passengers of an airline who came from Africa. I guess contact tracing is still nil. I wonder if they do administer tests upon arrival at the airport. Sure they have closed our borders to some countries because of fear of the Omicron. Sounds like Voltes 5 back in the 80s.

DOH says about 34M Filipinos are now fully vaccinated. And some frontliners are having their booster shots. I am still in a quandary if I need to have that booster shot come December 15, just six months after the effectivity of the vaccine. My question is, will everyone be vaccinated again after these six months? It would be a non-stop endevour as long as Covid-19 is still in our midst.

Some people are afraid if the government will declare lockdown again if someone is found positive of Omicron.

I ventured out again yesterday without Jovy and Josef, riding in a UV Express to go to the Ortigas Center to fix my problem with my change of PIN at Union Bank and to have my account updated at PNB. Killing two birds with one stone, that’s what.

I am planning to attend the 12th Sacerdotal Anniversary of a priest friend at EDSA Shrine on December 9. That would propably be the last trip on my own this month.

Oh, and it’s barely seventeen days to go before the much awaited event – CHRISTMAS ❤🌲🥂☃️🎄

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From The Lens

No, Covid is not my favorite subject. In fact I am trying to avoid discussing how we were during the three weeks that we were on strict quarantine. It had a big impact though in our lives.

It seems like my life has drastically changed. I still feel its debris because every now and then, I have slight fever every day. There are times when I wake up but I don’t feel rested at all. I am taking Melatonin every night now to help me sleep but it seems it has no effect. There are times when I wake up and still feel so weak.

I read an article that it is not just fourteen days. Post-covid symptoms suddenly arise. My sense of hearing has become weaker. Ordinary conversations are high-pitched to my ears and noisy. There were times when I would hear those angry and strange voices.

I watch videos to pass the time when I can’t sleep (mostly about doggies) but I put off the sounds. I can’t stand too long to take a bath so I sit on a stool. I have a friend who almost lost his life because of pneumonia and his sense of hearing and his eyes were affected.

The effects of Covid manifest themselves one by one when it is gone. I have low immunity because I am a cancer survivor so I take vitamin D, sodium ascorbate with Zinc and my usual maintenance medicines. I alternate drinking green tea lemon,ginger juice and honey citron tea every morning.

It is hard to adjust but I have to. Thanks to a loving God who give us second chances at life.

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They’re Going Home

Obet and Nate are going home this afternoon. Sad.

Nissa is going home tomorrow. She is now negative based on rapid antigen test. She still coughs once in a while but it is now manageable.For the past days, I’ve grown used to Nate waking up early so he could attend his online classes. Nissa sometimes supervises his assignments. It is nice having him around here.Yesterday, he asked me about taking his pictures everyday. I told him I am taking advantage of his presence. Here’s one where he was showing that signature smile.

After dinner last night he showed me how he whistles. There is a cartoon in his tab where he imitates the song.

We’ve been having a spike of people positive of Covid-19. It is scary.

I wish our LGUs would start rolling out the vaccines, they say that senior citizens are next in line. Here in our town, they are almost done vaccinating the frontliners.

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So It’s Just Covid?

It’s just funny and so inferiorating that the crazy old man thought of contract tracing and providing free face masks a year after lockdown. It’s been a year of almost 13,000 deaths, a year of letting the police force take charge of protocols instead of appointing medical people. Here’s a summary of how Covid has affected us a year after lockdown.

This was published the other day. We’re back to square one, we don’t even have vaccines yet except for those donations by WHO and the old man’s best friend china. The people are wary of that vaccine Sinovac. There is a sudden surge the past five days. And they have the nerve to say, they’re excellently handling it.

The other day, I asked all of you if you could include Nissa in your prayers. She is in the hospital now.

His brother-in-law got infected last week so the people in-charge of Covid patients in their place picked him up and brought him to a quarantine facility in Manila. Obet’s father’s sister who is a doctor told them to undergo swab tests including Nate and their househelp. They had it last Sunday. When I woke up last Monday morning, I received a message from Nissa that she is positive of Covid. They decided to have her admitted at the hospital where Dr. Isidro, their aunt is affiliated so she could be well taken cared of and to isolate herself too.

They suspected pneumonia when her x-ray was released. She’s now on antibiotics. She has a little cold but she had no fever, thank God for that. Grab Food delivered fruits and her other needs to the hospital yesterday which Obet hired since he is not allowed to go there. These service deliveries are only allowed up to the gate of the hospital.

You can only feel the impact of this virus when one family member is affected. It is a stressful situation. Obet called me up when he arrived home Monday night. He was crying. One thing that touched me was when he said that he was grateful to the way I brought up Nissa. According to him, she was so strong and so calm. I’ll tell you about Nate next post.

I talk to her and message her every few hours and she is okay. Please continue praying for her. My priest friends included her in their daily masses.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR PRAYERS🙏🙏🙏.

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Prayer Request

Kindly please INCLUDE NISSA IN YOUR PRAYERS. She is positive of Covid-19.

Thanks a lot friends.

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Crazy Covid

Last night a relative from UK called me up and told me about what they went through first week of December when four of them, she, her husband and two kids were found positive with Covid-19. She got the worse case, she had fever for more than a week, hardness of breathing, tastebud was nil, she kept coughing. She thought she would die. She was crying while narrating her experience with Covid.

“God is merciful”, she said. She held on and spent her time praying while she was isolated. It was the hardest challenge she had to face.

Like cancer, Covid is crazy. You’ll never know if you will live or die. When you are given a second chance at life, everything is a blessing.

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Third Week of Lockdown

Five days, five days of not even touching the keyboard of my computer. I just  rely on my CP and  tab to be updated on social media. I experienced the lowest stats in the last three days at 45 views average but that is irrelevant to me now.

I am more focused on the latest news about this deadly virus. Called up some friends too to get updated. I  talked to my brother in the province last night and told him about their mayor’s directive that those with private cars register them at the municipal hall to ferry those people who don’t have any means of transport. He told me, no way, he is the only driver available now and he’s been ill the past year. His car is too small for that so called social distancing.  And how would you know if these people are healthy and are not carriers?  Hospitals and puericulture  centers are sorely lacking in the province and  there are  no good doctors to take care of the sick. Come to think of it, they don’t even have thermal scanners, how much more with the PPEs?

The president  is missing.  He has been missing since they approved  around 275B budget to combat this virus. That was about a week ago. The sad thing is, we still don’t have enough test kits for the people. These so called VIPs in the government are being prioritized for testing to the detriment of those ordinary citizens who need help.  We are losing good doctors, specialists in their own field. We have frontliners who are mostly on self-quarantine and some are patients too in the hospital.

I was aghast at the news peddled by our Department of Health (DOH). Three days ago, their speaker told us in an interview that those test kits that came in from china are defective, only 40% reliable so they set it aside. People might come out false-positive. Here comes china’s ambassador telling DOH that those test kits didn’t come from them.  Yesterday, the DOH chief, Dr. Duque published a message that those test kits from china adhere to the requirements of WHO, they are 100% effective. How would you call that, clearly pondering  and still defending china with this blunder? I say, it is laban o bawi.

A friend of our neighbors gave them 100 sacks of rice to distribute to those who  aren’t able to afford to buy. Earlier on, he called me and asked Josef if he could drop by and he will give us some. He gave us  around 25 kilos of rice.  There are so many people outside, some even reaching our gate  so they could have their meager share of the free rice.

Have we reached this somehow desperate move by our citizens to go on a long line just to have  two kilos of rice? Nakaawa sila di ba?

In a  short span, the line has doubled.  it was just a few minutes ago that they were done distributing.  I craved for pancakes, so yesterday, Jovy made some for our snacks. She also made vanilla ice cream for Oreo and chocolate ice cream for us.  We are now using the two boxes of baking supplies previously allotted to their small business.

duterte is supposed to give an assessment on what they have started since he was given emergency powers by the Legislative branch of government a week ago.  He was supposed to speak at around 4pm today but he was a no show.  They might again choose to air what he has to say around midnight or thereafter when most people are sound asleep.  I don’t see any changes, our hospitals are still begging for donations of PPEs from the private sector. VP Leni Robredo is on the ground, she is the only one visible but duterte didn’t even give her a position in his administration. She is doing everything, some given through private donations so she could help the frontliners. There is a very small budget allotted to the Office of the Vice-President but private businesses have enough trust in her to do the job. they don’t trust duterte.

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At A Glance

The sun is hot.

31 °C is like summer but it is not yet officially declared.

Apart from the occasional motorcycles passing by, the road is empty. They made us to apply for a quarantine pass (one in each house) which we will use to run errands for the family. What is annoying with this is that, they will only allow that person written on the card to go out. Couldn’t they have made it at least a “bearer card”? The things they do, hindi pinag-isipan.

Yesterday Josef and Jovy went to Mercury Drug to buy medicines for mom. Some medicines like Vitamin C are out of stock. Even the grocery store they went to outside our gate needs to replenish its goods. I don’t know how long the lockdown will last, supposedly it is for another three weeks but the dirty old man they call our president wanted emergency powers on top of all what he was privileged to do to the country. He proposed a take-over of private corporations if public safety is at risk. I wonder why, the past days even before the numerous floods in various provinces, the Taal volcano eruption and now this CoVID-19 virus, he has been a no-show except to mouth directives left and right. He is clearly not in control of the situation. One netizen remarked: “He has already made a mess of his legally constituted presidential powers; imagine how much more mess he would do with emergency powers!” Our enemy is the corona virus but they are not addressing it properly. The cases at the moment are rising, bringing the total to 396 cases. 33 have died while 18 have recovered . Lockdown is useless if they won’t do enough testing for those PUIs and PUMs in our midst. What is even more annoying is that, there are VIPs (senators and government officials) who insisted to have the test together with their families. Those kits could have been used to those people who badly need them. Come to think of it, these government officials wanted immediate results even if they haven’t shown any symptom. What the____. Mapapamura ka talaga.

We already lost four doctors who are specialists in their fields. We have lots of medical frontliners who have been found positive of the virus. They were the most vulnerable since they deal with patients with positive cases every day. Earlier, the congressmen and the cabinet secretaries put up a sign on a manila paper that says, ” together with doctors and frontliners, we went to work for you so please stay at home for us”. The nerve of these people. they are shameless to compare and align themselves with doctors and frontliners. They were only there this morning just to approve duterte’s request for emergency powers. Gaya-gaya.

Except for the hum of the electric fan around my feet, everything is quiet. Even Oreo is asleep.

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Life Goes On

I am not so inspired to write. I’d rather read but I can’t finish a chapter.  I am focused on what is happening around.  I went out for a while early this morning to buy more provisions for us here in  our village store. They sell pork, dressed chicken, vegetables, fruits and other necessities needed in the kitchen.  Today is supposed to be our marketing day  but I am afraid to go out with so many people around.

One of the sellers remarked that I am lucky I am wearing disposable gloves. That is for extra protection, I told him. I bought a box of vinyl examination gloves two weeks ago. It contain hundred pieces.  Those found positive of the virus are on the rise and there are PUMs and PUIs by the hundreds. The problem is, this government still lacks testing kits.  Even if we are on a lockdown if we lack those necessary tools  to aid our health workers, it would be useless.

Josef brought down our large and heavy book of Mythology yesterday. Then he played with his collection of  Magic cards last night. He has several sets. I got curious how it is played. There is this station in the radio that plays 60s, 70s and 80s songs all day  and all night long without commercial break.

Priceless bonding with family, getting in touch with long lost friends, eating together, they are those moments that this COVID-19 brought us. Of course the fear is still there, you can’t erase that  but I lift it all to the Lord.

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Just Thinking

Four straight days at home without even going out of the gate.

You won’t believe this. In his first speech, he announced a community lockdown in Metro Manila. Two days after, he amended it to enhanced community lockdown in the entire Luzon. He issued directives to the local government and barangays without guidelines leaving them to their own  devices. They were given power to act for their own constituents. This government didn’t even consider how  our health workers, those who are badly needed in stores, supermarkets, drug stores and utilities in hospitals would report to their respective work. VP Leni spearheaded seeking donations from the private sector to buy PPEs (personal protective equipment) for our public hospitals and some private hospitals too. Her group procured several buses (at the same time observing social distancing) to ferry those medical personnel who don’t have cars at their disposal.  Some local governments  followed suit. The twenty-nine year old Pasig City mayor even purchased drones to disinfect the city. He is on the ground and knows the needs of the people and yet those paid trolls did not stop maligning him on social media. He suggested that some tricycles be allowed to operate for free in the city so those who need treatments for other diseases in hospitals could go but Malacanang rejected it outright.  Would you allow a five-kilometer walk to those patients to reach the hospital? He does not belong to the administration so he is hot in the eyes of the DDS and the national government.  What the ____. Last night, the old man issued another directive  that mayors should adhere to what the national government tells them to do and not make their own decision in their localities. What if their ideas are better? What if they have more productive means of carrying out what is supposed to be  a better alternative in this situation?  The one up in Malacanang seems to be threatened by a “baguito” mayor who thinks of better ways to do his job.

Know what Mayor Vico did? He purchased these earth-friendly rides COMET for the city’s use. zero-emissions shuttles to offer ‘libreng sakay’ to health frontliners and city personnel.

It is quite frustrating to read news nowadays.  Believe me, most of us are complying with staying at home. I wonder where the gargantuan budget supposedly for situations like this went to. Your guess is as good as mine.

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