Interview of Cecilia Brainard by 95.9 Star FM Bacolod

As of August 21, 2020, here in Cal­i­for­nia, we no longer have a lock­down and the econ­o­my is open­ing up. Cal­i­for­nia is not doing well; as of today there are 227,346 con­firmed Covid19 cas­es in Los Ange­les Coun­ty alone, with 5,446 deaths. In my city, San­ta Mon­i­ca, it is manda­to­ry to wear masks once you are out­side your house. Only out­door restau­rant din­ing is allowed and so you see park­ing lots of restau­rants con­vert­ed for out­door eat­ing. The mar­kets, stores, and estab­lish­ments that are open require face­mask and social dis­tanc­ing of six feet.

I stay at home as much as pos­si­ble and go out only if nec­es­sary to the post office, mar­ket, etc.  I have post­poned non-essen­tial activ­i­ties such as den­tal check­ups and vet vis­its for my cats. We lim­it the peo­ple we see and when we are with them, we wear masks and prac­tice social dis­tanc­ing.  When we do see them, we sit out­side and we keep six feet between us. We are very very care­ful because some peo­ple are asymp­to­matic and not even know it. For a while my son was buy­ing our gro­ceries but now I go to the super­mar­ket with mask, gloves, shield, and san­i­tiz­er in hand. I san­i­tize every­thing I buy or I quar­an­tine them in the garage for a day or two. I spray the soles of my shoes before enter­ing the house. If I had spent a lot of time at the super­mar­ket, I will take a show­er and change cloth­ing.  Oth­er peo­ple don’t do this; I am very very cau­tious because I have a his­to­ry of asthma.

I feel sad that my hus­band and I have not seen some of our grand­chil­dren for their and our pro­tec­tion. The ones we do see, we do not hug nor kiss but prac­tice social dis­tanc­ing with them. I am sad every time I check Coro­n­avirus updates and see the increas­ing num­ber of deaths glob­al­ly.  I feel as if I’m in a dream some­times, espe­cial­ly when I con­sid­er that Coro­n­avirus may nev­er be erad­i­cat­ed and that life will nev­er be as it was.

Because of Trump’s mixed mes­sages that are not sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly based, Amer­i­cans are con­fused. For instance wear­ing a mask has become a polit­i­cal issue, with pro-Trump sup­port­ers advo­cat­ing not wear­ing masks, when in fact mask-wear­ing is a sim­ple pub­lic-health mat­ter and every­one should wear masks. Dr. Fau­ci, the world’s lead­ing epi­demi­ol­o­gist is attacked by Trump and his fol­low­ers for instance when his advice is science-based.

The mat­ter of schools is anoth­er issue that is con­sum­ing peo­ple. Trump and some of his fol­low­ers want schools to open and not just have online class­es. Many teach­ers, par­ents and stu­dents are wary of open­ing up schools. My own grand­chil­dren have schools that do online class­es. Oth­er­s­wise, their par­ents would home school them rather than to send them to school and risk expo­sure to Covid19.

Please read my Fil­ipinos #Cop­ing­With­Covid series — see links below. I inter­viewed Fil­ipino Amer­i­cans in New Jer­sey, Ohio, Boston, San Diego, Ten­nessee and oth­er places.

I was born and raised Cebu. I attend­ed STC San Marceli­no for high school and Mary­knoll Col­lege for col­lege. I came to the US as a grad­u­ate stu­dent, but right after grad­u­at­ing from Mary­knoll Col­lege I worked for around six months at the Nation­al Media Pro­duc­tion Cen­ter in the Doc­u­men­tary section.

Yes, as soon as there is a vac­cine or treat­ment, I plan to vis­it the Philip­pines. I real­ize that even then we will have to be care­ful as this virus is expect­ed to be here for always.

I know the sit­u­a­tion is bad in the Philip­pines as well. My advice is to fol­low the sci­en­tists and to beware of fake news. There are many “reme­dies” for instance that are not sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly-proven. Wear a face mask, prac­tice social dis­tanc­ing, wash your hands often, try not to touch your face  — these are basics. One should also boost one’s immu­ni­ty by eat­ing prop­er­ly, exer­cis­ing, and tak­ing care of one’s body.

To Fil­ipinos who have extend­ed fam­i­lies, be very cau­tious even with fam­i­ly mem­bers. My first cousin, Con­gress­man Tony Cuen­co in Cebu died from Covid 19 which he con­tract­ed at a small fam­i­ly gathering.

Thank you for your work. Con­tin­ue to inform peo­ple the TRUTH. You are edu­cat­ing peo­ple with your work, and this is important.

These are dif­fi­cult times but it is impor­tant to remem­ber that this too will pass. Some­times we get depressed and sad, which is nat­ur­al, but try to think and do pos­i­tive things, like help­ing oth­ers. A bit of kind­ness, even a smile can lift up the spir­it, so be gen­er­ous with your kind­ness. Don’t spread fake news as these just con­fuse peo­ple. Check your media sources, espe­cial­ly news that seem very titillating.