ENHANCED community quarantine (ECQ) came into effect yesterday and will continue until at least April 14.
Last Friday, March 27, Bacolod City’s Mayor Bing Leonardia said that for the period of ECQ enforcement, barangays will issue one home quarantine pass (HQP) to a member of a family of ‘competent age and discretion’ (18 years old and above), for each household for the purpose of regulating the movement of residents.
We received our HQP on Saturday afternoon. Our Barangay, Taculing, reinterpreted Mayor Leonardia’s definition of competent age and discretion to between 18 and 59.
Most residents in our subdivision are sexagenarians and septuagenarians, with a few octogenarians. Some of us even claim a degree of competency. Regrettably, therefore, there will be technical breaches of the HQP usage which, appropriately, is confined to leaving our homes to buy, food, water, and medicines in nearby stores. We can undertake these tasks between 7am and 10am, and between 3pm and 6pm.
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Worldwide statistics make it clear that it will be some time before the global pandemic will be defeated.
International comparisons reveal huge differences between mortality rates.
Italy (population 60 million) has suffered more deaths than any other country including China (population 1.3 billion).
A European Champion’s league football match in February between the Italian club Atalanta and the Spanish club Valencia has been suspected as being responsible for many of the subsequent fatalities in Italy and Spain. Valencia has reported that 35 percent of their team and staff have tested positive for coronavirus following their trip to Italy. (Valencia lost the match 4-1).
Comparisons between countries are revealing. Germany has a much lower mortality rate of those who are coronavirus-positive than sufferers in Italy or Spain. One hypothesis compares favourably the German health system over that of Italy.
Authoritarian regimes such as China and much of Asia, including the Philippines, have been more effective at containing the virus than countries which claim greater individual freedoms. Democracy is not always advantageous!
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The virus has caused huge changes in our conduct. One of the most profound is that many employees are now working from home. Anecdotal evidence suggests that recent technological advances have been helpful at mitigating problems that may arise from lack of face-to-face communications.
This begs the question as to what will happen in the Philippines when the threat of the virus recedes. Will there be still much working from home or will the majority of employees revert to trooping back to their offices?
Discretionary activity will surely change. I believe that the retail industry will be challenged by on-line purchases. This, of course, is a factor which may be accelerated by the virus but probably would have happened to some extent anyway.
The virus will accelerate the use of electronic payments in preference to those made over the counter. Once we are used to paying utility bills electronically, it is unlikely that we shall revert to manual payments.
Before the virus we had been slowly reducing poverty levels. Unfortunately, the virus is already engendering an increase in poverty. This will become an increasingly serious challenge. The payment of between P5,000 to P8,000 to 18 million low-income households is merely a stopgap measure. The next challenge will be to replace the jobs that have already been lost.
On the bright side is a perceived increase in the sense of camaraderie.
Pakikisama rules!
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‘Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.’
The more things change, the more they are the same.
The title of this article was coined by Alphonse Karr (1808-1890) in 1849./PN
