JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

This is a journalist. I’d almost forgotten what they sound like.

My Olympic-level ability to fall asleep was tested last night by reports of how lockdown has affected urban poor communities in Metro Manila. The image of people who live by rooting through garbage, and now having no garbage to root through because everything is closed, is worse than zombie movies. It’s not as if I didn’t know that there exist millions of Filipinos living in abject poverty. I make virtuous noises, give when I can, and join in the collective outrage against corruption (which is really murdering the poor). But in order to live with myself, I file away the knowledge and regard poverty as an abstract evil that all countries face. Otherwise I would be incapacitated by guilt, unable to do anything, and be even more useless than I am now. Quarantine has brought reality into sharp focus. They are not concepts, they are people, and they need help now.
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Piazza d’Italia con cavallo by Giorgio de Chirico, who lived through the Spanish flu pandemic

Traditionally Black Saturday is the scariest day in the Catholic calendar—adults shushing children by saying “Patay ang Diyos!” (“God is dead,” and they weren’t quoting Voltaire). On this bleak day I figured I might as well have that dark night of the soul I’ve been warding off with routines and books.

Might as well plunge in: We’re not going back to the way things were on March 12, 2020. On April 30 we’re not going to run out the door, hug the friends and family we’ve missed, go out to dinner at the packed restaurant everyone was raving about, and then wind up at a bar to drink too much and have random, life-changing conversations with fascinating strangers who never turn up on dating apps. Those days are gone.

This is dire, so if you’re feeling fragile, stop reading now.

The second we come out of the house and mingle with other people, infection rates will go up. If too many people get sick, there will be further lockdowns. We cannot count on herd immunity until the vaccine arrives, and that will take at least 12 months. I’ve been thinking of the pandemic as an amorphous Big Bad, so I’ve attached numbers to my fear to give it clarity.

There are 13 million people in Metro Manila. Assume a Thanos snap scenario: half the population gets coronavirus. That’s 6.5 million people. According to data reports from different countries, 20 percent of the infected need hospitalization. That’s 1.3 million people. 5 percent of them will need to be in the ICU. That’s 65,000 people. Metro Manila’s hospitals cannot handle that, and the people with other diseases. People will die. People we care about may get sick and die.

Lockdown slows down contagion, but it cannot be extended indefinitely because we need to go to work or the economy will collapse. The coming months will be tough. Social distancing has to be strictly enforced. Shops will have to admit fewer customers on their premises, move online, or shut down. The travel and tourism industry may try to reopen, but forget about cheap fares on crowded flights and packed festivals. Organizers of parties and events have to rethink their businesses. Many people will lose their jobs. With fewer jobs to be had, many in the middle class will fall into poverty. Poor families will starve. Hunger, mental illness, domestic violence, other diseases that cannot be attended to by Covid-overwhelmed hospitals will kill more people than coronavirus does. Desperation will drive people to commit crime. The immediate future looks bleak.

In Lord of the Rings terms we have just reached Moria. In Dune terms, Sardaukar are chasing us into the desert and into the mouth of Shai-Hulud. I refer to Tolkien and Dune (and Buffy and the Avengers, and sure let’s bring in Game of Thrones and every epic fantasy we’ve ever followed) not just to make myself feel better, but as a reminder that this terrible time will come to an end. We just have to make it through the next 18 months. The occasional dark night of worry, self-pity, even hysteria is okay because we have to let our fear out or it will consume us. But we cannot give in to despair. Our survival depends on believing that we will overcome this, and doing what we must to overcome this.

This is the litany. Wear mask and gloves outside the house. Always be six feet away from other people. Wash your hands constantly. Take care of yourself. Take care of other people (from a distance). Support the frontliners, including the workers who keep groceries, pharmacies, and public utilities running. Donate to organizations that give food assistance to communities in need.

Do your work as best as you can. Push government to release the social amelioration funds now. If you have any ideas at all about how we can address this crisis, even far-out ideas since we are in unknown territory now, send them over. The systems and conditions, excesses and absences that allowed the virus to rip through the world and shut it down—those must change. Be of good cheer. Remind yourself that this pandemic will end.

We are standing in the rubble of the old world, and we have to build a new and better one. I want to see that.

Sorry to inflict this on you, I kept the image small.

As lockdown was beginning, we read about how Shakespeare had an amazingly productive time in quarantine during a plague outbreak. In isolation he wrote King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, and Macbeth. The piece was widely circulated to keep our spirits up as we faced weeks and months marooned in our houses. (We forgot that Emily Dickinson produced all her work while self-isolating.) The message was: Now you have time to write that masterpiece you’ve been thinking about since college. Uh-oh, just remembered a song from the 80s which went like this:
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“We believe we are staying home, reading books and watching television, but, in fact, we are readying ourselves for a battle over a new reality that we cannot even imagine, slowly coming to understand that nothing will ever be the same.” Olga Tokarczuk in the New Yorker.

*****

Glanced at my phone and realized that it’s Maundy Thursday. As I had not set a reminder, the phone took it upon itself to call my attention. It also judges me silently for my increased screen time.

In years past, though less frequently in recent years, someone would be singing the pasyon (the epic narrative of the passion of the Christ) around now. The tune would change according to the singer’s musical tastes—I have heard the pasyon sung to the tune of “Hey, Jude.”
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This sketch is here because I thought the line was “23 days” but it’s really “33 days”. Which reminds me that it’s time for the annual viewing of The Life of Brian.

What was supposed to be the final quarter of lockdown is now the midpoint, and I’ve started a new notebook because the previous one is full. I’ve been using thin notebooks in the hope that this quarantine doesn’t last too long, but I’ve accepted the fact that until the vaccine comes, social distancing is how we live.

On one hand quarantine is not much different from my old way of life, so one might say I trained for this. On the other hand, how am I going to make a living if I can’t sell books? But I’ll figure that out in time; the priority in the next 23 days is to stay safe and sane.
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Drogon critiques my journal.

Woke up to dire news via Anxious Friend Viber. In the latest report to Congress the president said he could not sleep from thinking about how to address the outbreak because government has run out of money and he knows people are hungry but all he can tell them is to lock themselves in their houses. The “veerus”, he said, is not afraid of his big mouth and only science can fight it. If shooting the virus could kill it, the crisis would be over by now.

At which point coffee shot out of my nose, and I hadn’t even had coffee yet.
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