Several days before President Duterte announced the lockdown of Metro Manila, I decided to see a movie in a mall to pass the time between two appointments. For the first time in my life, I found myself the only one in the whole theater in what was usually a packed evening showing of a highly rated film. The feeling was so eerie that I left the movie house before the film ended and rushed to my next appointment to be with people.

This seemingly innocuous experience reminded me of the thousands of passengers quarantined recently for days on several luxury cruise ships which had been kept isolated offshore in several countries. What had started out as a fun holiday with family had suddenly become a miserable ordeal of extended isolation.

Lonely world

As this is being written, an increasing number of people are also going into voluntary or forced quarantine because of recent exposure to persons who had tested positive for the new coronavirus. It is progressively becoming a lonely world.

Although we can certainly do without the present pandemic causing so much death and suffering globally, I’m beginning to realize it is one of nature’s many ways of reminding us to restore balance in our lives.

How? My “all alone” experience in the movie house helped me appreciate being able to personally and intimately connect with loved ones and friends, and to realize that digital devices will never replace personal quality time.

How many times have we seen families eating in restaurants, with each member totally absorbed in his cell phone, eschewing personal connection with his loved ones who are right there, in favor of digital connectivity, often with mere acquaintances or strangers a world away?

Social isolation increasingly being forced on us by a dreaded virus should make us realize the value of being fully present when we are with the people closest to us. I now realize why solitary confinement is the harshest form of punishment a prison inmate can be subjected to.

New norm

“Social distancing” is the new norm. Handshakes, beso-beso and hugging have been replaced by fist bumps, elbow bumps and, most lately, avoiding any proximity.

But most noticeable is the ubiquitous wearing of protective masks of every kind, from the simplest to the most technically advanced surgical masks.

Actually, the use of masks has been a normal practice in Japan. When I asked the reason for this on one of my trips, I was told the Japanese people do this mainly to avoid infecting others when the wearer was suffering from cold or cough, as a sign of social consideration.

Here, for the first time, we wear masks in public to avoid infection, not to avoid spreading infection.

Speaking of masks, for more than a month now, they have completely disappeared from the market (except for the cheap, make-do cloth masks made locally). Alcohol and hand sanitizers of any brand are also gone from drugstores and supermarkets—a testament to the seemingly endless wave of panic buying. Trying to buy just one or two bottles of alcohol for the regular sanitizing of my nebulizer device, I have come up empty after going to a dozen drugstores the past week.

Also, immediately after the announcement of the Metro Manila lockdown, followed by the “enhanced” community quarantine of Luzon, supermarkets were swamped with panic buyers of groceries and household items, especially, believe it or not, toilet paper!

‘Kanya-kanya’

These knee-jerk reactions reflect our gross kanya-kanya culture, which gives inordinate priority to one’s family at the expense of the larger community. Whatever happened to the vaunted, countervailing bayanihan spirit? We will need this trait badly in the trying days and months ahead.

In contrast to all selfishness, the second major lesson we are apparently being taught is to learn that we—not only Filipinos but all of humanity—are all in this together and must act together in times like this. I believe that all nations are being led to work closely for our collective deliverance in this crisis and those still to come.

We are not yet there because each country is still going it alone, trying to protect its citizens by closing its borders and taking the necessary local measures to contain the problem. But a virus knows no borders.

Lastly, I believe that the third major lesson we are being taught is to constantly expect and be prepared for change—sudden, disruptive, global. With its sudden appearance and swift spread, COVID-19 is just the first warning salvo, so to speak. Bill Gates was quoted as saying that the world was not prepared for the next pandemic, and he is being proven right. Overly optimistic

In a previous Lifestyle article (“The outlook for our great-grandkids: ‘Superbugs’ and severe weather conditions,” 02/03/19), I pointed out the many calamities coming generations would have to contend with. I was overly optimistic. Some of these are upon us now.

Aside from the severe weather conditions climate change is already bringing upon us, we should expect new organisms with unusual characteristics (in addition to the constantly mutating bacteria already impervious to present drugs). The coronavirus is an excellent example.

Apparently, it has a long incubation period (up to 14—even 27—days according to some findings). During this time, the infected individual, while manifesting no symptoms, may already be infecting others. So, unlike the previous severe acute respiratory syndrome and Middle East respiratory syndrome epidemics, the present illness can spread surreptitiously at a much faster rate. As one article put it concisely, the coronavirus is climate change on warp speed.

This last lesson (so far) of constantly expecting sudden and disruptive global change calls for a paradigm shift in attitude and preparedness on the part of everyone, but most especially of national governments and concerned global institutions. The present crisis has caught even the most advanced countries like the United States unprepared in terms of resources—emergency health care supplies, equipment and facilities, not to mention organizational capability.

This is an urgent wake-up call, just as global warming has been sounding the largely unheeded wake-up call against climate change for many years now. But while climate change takes decades for its worst effects to be felt, relatively speaking, a microscopic virus can wreak havoc on humanity in the blink of an eye.—CONTRIBUTED