Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

author and editor

Cecilia Brainard #Covid articles in Positively Filipino

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 Cecil­ia Brainard

Please read my arti­cles in Pos­i­tive­ly Fil­ipino, below. Note that all of  Cecil­ia Bra­nard’s arti­cles and her Covid series are part of the Philip­pine Covid Archive of Fil­ip­inas Her­itage Library.

Coro­n­avirus: The Beginning 

“When I vis­it­ed Mani­la last Jan­u­ary 20 the air was thick with smog­gy haze from the ash fall of Taal Vol­cano. Taal had erupt­ed on Jan­u­ary 12–13 and destroyed people’s homes and farms and killed live­stock. Peo­ple in Luzon were busy help­ing the dis­placed peo­ple and clean­ing up the ash fall.

Still reel­ing from this dis­as­ter, peo­ple dis­cov­ered the news shift­ing to the dead­ly virus in Wuhan, Chi­na. The symp­toms of coro­n­avirus sound­ed like a very bad flu: fever, cough, mus­cle pain, pneu­mo­nia; but unlike the flu, coro­n­avirus could not be checked with a vac­cine, and it was dead­ly. Defy­ing Chi­nese author­i­ties, some doc­tors from Wuhan post­ed online hor­rif­ic reports about coro­n­avirus.  The nov­el virus was high­ly con­ta­gious; it was spread­ing like wild­fire; it was killing huge num­bers of peo­ple…”  please con­tin­ue read­ing in Pos­i­tive­ly Filipino. 

 

How Fil­ipinos Are Cop­ing With Covid-19, Part One: Cana­da, Sin­ga­pore, UK, Italy

“Fil­ipinos all over the world have been grap­pling with the coro­n­avirus pandemic’s dis­as­trous effects ever since it broke out in Feb­ru­ary: trav­el bans; deaths on cruise ships; lock­downs or shel­ter-at-home or self-iso­la­tion. Fil­ipino med­ical care work­ers have been thrust into the lime­light, try­ing to save peo­ple from dying from Covid-19. Coro­n­avirus recalls the mon­u­men­tal pan­demics of the 1918 Span­ish flu and the Black Death of the 14th century.

How have Fil­ipinos all over the globe coped with the dis­rup­tions caused by coronavirus?

Despite var­ied gov­ern­ment lock­down rules, most of those I inter­viewed have stayed at home and lim­it­ed their con­tact with oth­ers. They wear face masks, prac­tice social dis­tanc­ing, and san­i­tize their hands, sur­faces, gro­ceries, mail and pack­ages — care­ful about not infect­ing them­selves and others,

Part One of this series fea­tures Fil­ipinos from Cana­da, Sin­ga­pore, UK and Italy…” please con­tin­ue read­ing in Pos­i­tive­ly Fil­ipino.

How Fil­ipinos Are Cop­ing With Covid-19, Part Two: Ger­many, Switzer­land, Spain, France

“The Fil­ipinos I inter­viewed for this arti­cle shared some of the pre­cau­tions they take to sur­vive the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. All wear face masks (some wear gloves while shop­ping), prac­tice social dis­tanc­ing, wash their hands, and san­i­tize mail and pack­ages. Some wash fruit, veg­eta­bles and san­i­tize cans and food box­es. Many remove their shoes at the door­way. All lim­it their con­tact with oth­er peo­ple; and in some cas­es do not have close con­tact with their chil­dren nor grand­chil­dren. In many house­holds, one per­son is des­ig­nat­ed as the buy­er of gro­ceries and neces­si­ties; the rest stay home. Many cook their food; those who order take­out do so via con­tact­less deliv­ery. Some order online items and food.

Here is Part Two of the Series on “How Fil­ipinos Are Cop­ing with Covid 19”, fea­tur­ing Fil­ipinos from Ger­many, Spain, France, and Switzer­land…” please con­tin­ue read­ing in Pos­i­tive­ly Filipino. 

How Fil­ipinos Are Cop­ing With Covid-19, Part Three : Japan, Aus­tralia, New Zealand, Philip­pines

Some coun­tries have con­tained Covid-19 rel­a­tive­ly well, includ­ing (but not lim­it­ed to) Japan, Aus­tralia, and New Zealand. For rea­sons that experts are still study­ing, these coun­tries have com­par­a­tive­ly low coro­n­avirus cas­es and deaths.

What I see is that the gov­ern­ments of these coun­tries have a clear plan and have been quick to imple­ment­ing trav­el restric­tions, quar­an­tine rules, test­ing, trac­ing, and issu­ing clear rules and guide­lines to their cit­i­zens and res­i­dents. In many cas­es, cit­i­zens and res­i­dents received finan­cial and oth­er assistance.

The Philip­pines was doing rel­a­tive­ly well until the surge of Covid 19 cas­es in Cebu in mid-June. I have includ­ed the per­son­al accounts of some Fil­ipinos about how they are deal­ing with coro­n­avirus. Please con­tin­ue read­ing in Pos­i­tive­ly Filipino.

 

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