On two occasions, Dumaguete City was in the center of the COVID-19 scare: the first was with the death of an infected-Chinese national who had visited here as a tourist, and the second, was with a local of the Province who tested positive of the virus after a trip to Metro Manila.
The latter is the reason why a particular local government unit in the Province was first to require anyone coming from Manila to undergo a 14-day self-quarantine to avoid possible contamination.
Meanwhile, on the night of March 12, President Duterte ordered the suspension of all forms of travel to and from Metro Manila between March 15 to April 14, 2020.
I was supposed to attend two national conferences in Manila on March 9 and 14, and it was a relief to learn that the organizers had immediately decided to cancel the events in compliance with the declaration of a public health emergency.
Although the cancellations mean that I would not be refunded for my unused plane tickets, except for rebooking, and hotel reservation fees, the priority was not only of my safety but also of the community, in case I would have virus exposure during the trip.
This feeling may be the same with others of similar predicament.
During this time of COVID-19 scare, social distancing is among the prescribed ways to avoid infection, in addition to wearing of face masks and hand washing or using alcohol.
Deferral of unimportant travels, cancellation of large gatherings, evasion of crowded places, avoidance of handshakes, and many others are some forms of social distancing.
Working from home, the use of social media, a reduction of office hours, teleconferencing, and other technology-aided ways of performing our jobs without too much public exposure are being explored — which are, however, relative to the quality of the internet connection available.
Indeed, this pandemic is altering our folkways and social norms.
Lockdown is an ultimate form of social distancing to prevent the overwhelming spread of the COVID-19.
This measure was imposed first in Wuhan City of Hubei province in China–the source of the virus–and later, in Italy, after the daily death toll soared, to save more people from possible contamination.
Other countries followed suit.
In a lockdown, the mobility of the people is controlled, and many are caught unprepared to stock food and other basic needs because this is taken as the last resort to address an emergency.
Culturally, social distancing, or isolating sick people, is not an unusual practice among Filipinos.
I experienced it during my childhood when I had chickenpox (Ceb: hangga). I had these itchy rashes with small, fluid-filled blisters that left scars in the affected areas of my body.
Chickenpox, caused by the varicella-zoster virus, is also highly-contagious by those who have not been vaccinated.
The spread that time was usually contained to a particular place because people were yet less mobile with limited forms and regularity of transportation as compared today.
I remember I had to stay home but away from my siblings for several days so that dili ko makatakod (I would not infect) others, until all the blisters would have come out. I had to feast with an orange drink and boiled egg almost every day to, as I was told, enable the blisters to be exposed. All that, while I watched my friends leaving for school or playing on the street after classes. I had to miss many classes and examinations.
Still, more people got infected during that time because the vaccine was not yet popularly available, unlike now that school children can get it at a young age.
Sociologically, social distancing is a harsh action to isolate certain people from a group due to differences in beliefs, practices, ideology, and so on.
In social research, it is used to measure how prejudiced one group is toward another group. In essence, given several statements to be rated, the higher the social distance score, the greater is the prejudice against a particular group.
This was actually the case before COVID-19, when there were still many Chinese tourists around. Some Filipinos not only acted with prejudice against them due maybe to some political issues, but also because they were being “blamed” for the spread of the coronavirus in our country.
Now with the COVID-19 scare, social distancing and contact tracing have served as preventive measures, and these are what could be done yet because there is neither a vaccine available to prevent infection nor antibiotics from curing people infected with the virus.
The uncertainties about what might happen next has caused panic, to the point that the hoarding of bottles of alcohol and face masks has again occurred–anyone is scared to be infected by anyone.
This situation is similar to that time when news broke out about the death of that COVID-19-infected Chinese national who had visited Dumaguete.
The recently-imposed travel ban to Manila may curtail the further spread of the virus, although this could have serious economic costs.
But I am still hopeful that it is not yet too late, despite the fact that the infected person is a local who was already in close and personal encounters with many other locals before he got sick and was admitted to the hospital.
Indeed, this situation demands strict observance of various forms of social distancing, and of isolating those who had had physical contacts with the patient to prevent the possible spread of the virus.
Everyone has to be alert but not to panic in this extraordinary times.
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