#VoxPopuli | Unboxing COVID 19!
By Jia Ruth Lauren P. Condino
When I was 10 years old, I was binge-watching on the TED-Ed YouTube channel when I stumbled upon a video about Pandora’s Box. In the story, Pandora’s curiosity got the better of her and she opened a forbidden box. All kinds of trouble were released from the box unto the world, without any chance of being contained again. Fast forward to 2021, I am 13 and the world is in the middle of a global pandemic caused by a virus called Covid-19. It has infected about 190 million people all over the world, and more than four million have died from it.
It all started when a few cases of this unknown virus were reported in Wuhan, China in December 2019. I first heard about it from my Science teacher when my classmate asked why we were watching a movie called Contagion in class. Contagion is about how the world dealt with a fictional virus similar to the one from Wuhan. A few weeks later, I saw on the news that the first case of the unknown virus, then called novel coronavirus, was reported in the Philippines. In March 2020, classes in our school were suddenly dismissed one day. We were informed the next day that the rest of the school year had been cancelled.
Metro Manila was put under strict quarantine to prevent the virus from spreading. People were not allowed to go outside unless they were doing essential tasks, like buying food. Most were stuck in their homes, with some even being stuck alone, away from their family. Many people lost their jobs and struggled to earn money and provide for their family. There were not enough face masks, face shields, and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), especially for health workers. There was a lack of public transportation.
Church services were cancelled, along with other social gatherings. I was not able to celebrate my best friend’s birthday with her. I had to stop taking gymnastics training because gyms were closed. I also started going to school online. I celebrated two birthdays in quarantine. My family also celebrated Christmas without visiting relatives for the first time. Sadly, my grandfather also passed away during this time, and I could not go to his funeral.
It seemed like all the bad stuff from Pandora’s Box really was wreaking havoc on Earth. However, in the story, not everything that came out of the box was bad. As Pandora wept over her mistake, she heard something coming from the box. When she opened it again, she saw hope come out. Hope has stayed in the world as long as the negative things have, and it still remains even in the middle of the pandemic. As the negative effects of the pandemic started to creep into homes and people’s lives all over the world, so did hope.
I saw hope when community pantries were set up by ordinary people all over the country. I saw hope when my family and neighbors gave food to our neighborhood’s security guards and staff who could not go home daily for lack of transportation. I saw hope when regular people offered free rides for workers. I saw hope when people made PPEs for health workers out of their own resources. I saw hope when my family’s church was used as temporary quarters for health workers. I saw hope when my family, and some friends, made Do-It-Yourself face shields using acetate film and foam for the health workers in our barangay. I saw hope when I sent cookies to my best friend for her birthday, and a mini cake the year after. I saw hope when my family members got vaccinated. I saw hope when kids started getting vaccinated. I saw hope when the number of Covid-19 cases in the Philippines started going down.
When I think of the Pandora’s Box story, I remember that hope was there to keep the box’s bad stuff at bay. In the same way, I hope that when future generations look back at the pandemic, they see it not only as a global health crisis, but also as a story of hope. Despite not having an undo or rewind button, hope kept Covid-19’s negative effects at bay. A hope that brought people together. A hope that would end the pandemic, once and for all.
