Paranoia

I never thought I’ll write something like this in my lifetime…

There is so much paranoia in people’s actions and decisions that is making things complicated - this is what I have observed in the actions of Filipinos after president Rodrigo Duterte declare a lockdown that took effect this March 15th. People got confused as the pragmatic nature of the problem caused by the coronavirus have caused displacement for the large part of the city and panic to people who has less resources (could easily be 60% of the city, considering most have spent their savings in the yearend holidays). These had decreased the ability of the government to manage the situation. But there is a bigger issue at hand.

We only have in the country 400 respirators. Yes you heard it right, for a country of 105 million, we have only 400 - typical of a third world nation. What this means is almost all of the people who will contract the severe version of the virus will be unable to get medical attention. Many Filipinos will die either of the virus and insufficiency of medical care. I can’t fucking believe I’m writing this words in my blog. Our country will go back to becoming a slave to a stronger nation state or deteriorate in mass paranoia and instability.

I have no choice but to write my thoughts or else I’ll go insane. I have genuinely observed this situation since January and saw how it destroyed many lives. The coronavirus is not an existential threat to humans but the chaos it brings can knockdown every strong nation to its knees and weaker nations like ours to its demise. I can’t believe what I see far into the weeks and months to come. I hope I’m wrong. I really hope I’m wrong. Please wake me up from this bad dream.