I’LL JUST park this: Stupid is knowing the truth, seeing the truth, but still believing the lies. Meanwhile, stupidity is the act of being stupid which is having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense.
And a stupid person is an idiot.
The quarantine is not meant to curtail your freedom but to keep you safe, healthy and alive to enjoy your freedom when the pandemic is hopefully over.
It is also meant not to overload the medical services sector and to buy time until a vaccine is developed.
The quarantine is, most of all, to keep people off the streets and to prevent large gatherings to keep the coronavirus a.k.a. SARS CoV-2 or more commonly known now as COVID-19 from spreading and infecting more people.
You see, the virus COVID-19 is not a living thing until it infects a host and starts multiplying. Since it is not a living thing, this means that by itself it cannot move and needs a vector to be mobile.
A vector, on the other hand, is an organism that transmits a disease or parasite from one animal or plant to another.
The favourite and most effective vector of the virus COVID-19 are humans, you know, people, meaning us. Without people, the virus cannot spread and will just melt away in the heat of the midday sun.
Unfortunately, most natives in these islands do seem to get that. They have this oblivious attitude and their main concern and worry is if they can buy their beer or cheap rum or not.
It is now Day 5 of the almost “new normal”, the General Community Quarantine or GCQ, and so far nothing untoward yet i.e. a sudden rise in COVID-19 positive cases (I hope I have not spoken too soon).
With the lifting of the alcohol ban, the drunks seem to have caught up with their alcohol fix and have so far been “good boys”.
But all is not perfect in “I Am Iloilo City”.
The wearing of facemask while in public is de rigueur because your life depends on it, plus it is also an ordinance in Iloilo Province and “I Am Iloilo City” with fines and legal sanctions.
The purpose of wearing facemask is to protect yourself and the rest of the natives you come into contact with. You see, COVID-19 is transmitted from person to person via droplets from a cough, a sneeze or your saliva. The favourite point of entry of COVID-19 is through your nose, mouth and eyes hence the facemask.
Any sensible person knows that for the facemask to be effective it must be worn properly covering your nose and mouth down to your chin and must fit snugly.
And then there are the idiots which unfortunately you see almost anywhere in “I Am Iloilo City”; these are the ones wearing a facemask but their noses are not covered and the ones also wearing facemasks but only their chins are covered, exposing their noses and mouths. And this tops it all: their facemask is just hanging on either ear or on their forehead like a sweatband.
Considering that these are idiots, they of course never got the point why we are required to wear facemasks – and it is not to hide their ugly faces or cover their foul smelling breathe.
I need not repeat the logic and scientific reason behind the wearing of a facemask in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic as you are I hope not stupid or an idiot.
Remember those people riding motorcycles with their helmets hanging on their arms and not on their heads where it is supposed to be? Yes, they are one and the same idiots.
And there’s more; with ABS-CBN off the airwaves because their franchise expired and was not renewed, there seems to be less “fake news”. Of course we cannot say totally absent, because Rappler is still there holding the fort. What is happening now is a proliferation of “death threats” against President Duterte via Twitter and Facebook.
These trendy social-climbing, desperate-for-approval idiots never realized that a threat on the life of the President and Vice President is a felony, meaning a crime. It is on the same level as a “bomb joke” on the plane and in the airport – always taken seriously no matter how ridiculous it may seem.
And finally, a report from the Philippine Coast Guard last Sunday said several returning OFWs who were tested and found positive of COVID-19 escaped from their quarantine facility and went home.
That is classic stupidity. I supposed being idiots they fail to realize the consequence that they will infect their family and everyone else they come into contact with. (brotherlouie16@gmail.com/PN)
