Coronavirus - Why am I scared?

So.... we are in a middle of a pandemic which nobody expected we would experience in our lifetime. And, I'm scared... really scared!

This is now our 4th week in the lockdown. Why the lockdown? Because our healthcare system is so weak. We don’t have enough hospital beds to treat COVID19 patients with severe symptoms. Of course, we all know this already. We’ve been hearing this from the news every single day. But why am I scared?

Let me break it down. COVID19 affects the lungs. It could lead to pneumonia. If you got this complication, it means you will have shortness of breath. It means, it’s difficult to breathe! I know how it feels. I had PCP type of pneumonia 7 years ago as an HIV complication. Man, it’s so damn hard! I know how it feels to have difficulty breathing. Walking from my bed to the toilet was a struggle. When I was hospitalized, my doctor even refrained me from going to the toilet, which was only 3 meters away from my bed. I had to stay on my bed all day, all night. I had to do #1 and #2 on my bed. My doctor didn’t want my lungs and heart to exert so much effort trying to grasp for air. If it tires out, it will just give up. Eating was difficult too, as it made me grasp for air! 

That’s how difficult pneumonia is. And that was not the most severe case yet, because I did not reach a point when I had to be intubated due to its severity. Luckily, I got better after a week or two, and got cured from a potentially deadly infection.

Now, how does a severe pneumonia look like? Let me paint a picture. It’s even harder… a lot harder. I personally saw my parent experienced this. Due to cancer, she got pneumonia. When it got so severe, she was literally out of control, as she tried to grasp for air. Nagwawala na sa hospital bed. I witnessed it personally. That’s the time when the doctor intubated her. That means, naglagay na ng tubo as throat para dun na dumecho ang hangin, galing sa ventilator.

Now, imagine this, if our healthcare system gets overwhelmed due to COVID19, as in the case of Spain and Italy, people who need ventilators will not be given one. Because we just don’t have enough ventilators available. What happened to my parent, that’s what’s gonna happen to these COVID patients. That’s not just a few patients… hundreds. thousands… oh, sorry, it’s tens of thousands! It would even reach a point when doctors would have to choose which patient to give ventilators to. They decide who lives, who dies. Isn’t that apocalyptic? Hope we won’t reach that point.

So, I’m really glad that Duterte (though I’m not a DU30 fan) implemented this lockdown thing early on.  This is the only way to “flatten the curve” for now. And, this will only be successful if we all cooperate.

We can do this. Let’s follow our government. Stay at home. Distancia amigo. For our safety. For the safety of our frontliners. For the safety of my fellow immuno-comprised persons.  And, for the safety of our parents and grandparents. Let's flatten the curve, not to eliminate deaths... it's a given that people will die. But to at least reduce the number of COVID19 deaths.