Tag Archives: COVID-19

Booster

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Drive through vaccination. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I saw on Instagram this noon that you can just “walk in” or rather drive through for a booster shot at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) in Pasay City and they’re giving Moderna. I quickly took a shower and got dressed, hoping that I could make it because they’re offering it only until 3 pm.

It was 20 km away from my apartment but it only took me 30 mins to reach DFA via Skyway 3. It’s ok if I had to pay PhP 400+ for roundtrip toll as long as I’m done with this booster business ASAP.

My arm now feels heavy. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I had to wait for 30 mins after receiving the vaccine for any allergic reaction (my histamine went haywire twice when I got Sinovac before) but so far I had no no rashes or itchiness.

It took me only 30 mins to get back to QC so I took this opportunity to run errands since I’m already out. I bought A LOT of paracetamol and antihistamines from The Generics Pharmacy near our house and went to UP for veggies.

Makeshift half basketball court. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

It has been a long time since I last been here. They built a makeshift half basketball court in the middle of the compound (the old tennis courts) where Enriquez vegetable and fruit shop is located. It seems like life is normal here except for the sight of masked people. Sharp contrast to the streets earlier today where it’s eerily quiet and only a few vehicles are out.

Finally, I could feel the effects of the vaccine. I took one paracetamol tablet and now I feel like I’m high or floating. I’m sleepy and my whole body aches. It’s only a few mins past 6 pm but I think I’ll call it a day.

G’night.

Elementary students had better excuses

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The hearing of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr’s disqualification case before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) was slated for today. The coward was a no-show. The criminal has been convicted of tax evasion by the lower courts several years ago and now he faces three petitions for his disqualification. He keeps on submitting dubious documents as he tries to worm his way out of this one.

I wish this was a satire or a joke. BUT IT IS NOT! OMG! Even my kids could make up better excuses than this. *facepalm* People online are joking that we now have a new Covid variant called Zoomicron, which can be transmitted through Zoom.

No, you can’t make this up. It’s too stupid. But here it is, it’s all over the news.

One of the Commissioners is now livid.

They want to delay this as long as they can so he can continue to run even though he is a convicted criminal.

Meanwhile, we stocked up on KN95/KN94 masks because double masking with surgical + cloth for a better fit doesn’t cut it anymore.

Yep, the growth is exponential. Good luck to all of us. I was chatting with a source last night and he projected that we will be hitting 50k cases by Monday and then 100k towards the end of the month. By Feb this will taper off but before that, all of us would have caught it by then. He told me he already stocked up on oxygen tanks and meds. Forget about hospitals, he told me, we are incapable of getting help from the hospitals now. I told my sisters that they should make sure the oxygen tank at home is filled up just in case my mom gets hit again.

So 2022 is like a repeat of 2021, only that we are just too tired of the shit of last year. Year 3 of bullshit. So people are now turning to little things like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson taking on Cookie Monster on Twitter for some amusement.

I envy my cats. No stress, no problems. The only stressors they have are my two-legged children disturbing their peace.

Lucky cat. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

As Twin I said, in her next life she wants to be our cat.

Action of one, affecting all

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Berjaya Makati Hotel Statement
January 6, 2022

The order by the Makati City Hall closing down Berjaya Makati Hotel’s operations based on the suspension order issued by the Department of Tourism is without legal basis.

For one, the DOT order is not yet final as the hotel will appeal it within the fifteen-day period it is given. Meanwhile, the suspension is not in effect. Secondly, there is no law that penalizes a hotel for not reporting a guest who jumps quarantine. There is nothing in R.A. 13322 that is applicable to the hotel. Thirdly, we must be accorded due process and be allowed to explain before any penalty is imposed. We have not been given our day in court by the Makati City Hall.

On the operations level, if we close down the hotel immediately, where do we send the 150 or so quarantine guests we have at the moment?

The whole country is on war footing in effect against the pandemic. Every quarantine hotel, just like ours, serves a strategic purpose especially with the lack of rooms while the virus rampages throughout. To close down a quarantine hotel for no legal reason is to close down a hospital just when it is helping to win the war. There is no benefit to be gained by such regulatory posturing when national interest and public health are on the line.

Berjaya press release sent to my mailbox today

One selfish/entitled act of one affects everybody. This Gwyneth Chua has wreaked havoc on a lot of businesses and families. The people whom she infected have reached La Union and have affected a restaurant that was forced to close down. (No Omicron in La Union despite Chua contact testing positive)

There are stories floating around about her parents bribing staff of the hotel so she can skip quarantine (ugh! Parents condoning selfish acts!) but are not proven.

“In fact, her friends asked why she was already out partying, instead of being in quarantine [in Berjaya Hotel], and she claimed to have ‘connections’,” according to Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat in an interview with this paper. She identified a bar in Poblacion, Makati, popular among millennials, as one of the venues where Chua allegedly partied with friends.”

Business Mirror

This is the problem with the third-world country like the Philippines: the small fry with money can behave like they own the country. Such small-town thinking.

So now we’re grappling with several thousands of daily cases again. I don’t know how long we can wait for the kids can get vaccinated before omicron gets us again.

I have already signed up for my girls’ vaccination and hopefully they can get the first dose before the month ends.

We just logged 17,220 new cases today with a positivity rate of almost 37%. Sigh. Here we go again.

We’re so tired of this. There should be vaccine equality now worldwide or else we will battling this virus longer than we should.

Elsewhere in the world, Japan to declare quasi-state of emergency amid rising COVID cases while EU daily virus cases top 1 million for first time.

And so it begins again

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There’s an anecdote by a guy on Twitter about being in a mall in Makati that is now almost empty and workers are waiting for customers to come so they can collect commissions enough for fare to go home later that night 😓

Lockdowns are not the answer especially when it’s the poor who are going to be hurt. We don’t have to go on lockdowns. The government just needs to speed up vaccination roll out and the boosters. Like in our barangay, we are only allotted less than 500 shots that we had to share with other barangays. The patients would have to queue at 5 am just to be able to get that slot. Since I am sick now, I would have to forgo since 1) I can’t physically have the booster shot because I’m sick; 2) I may end up endangering other people by spreading what I have (I’m not sure if this is already Covid or just plain colds). Even antigen tests are hard to obtain. My high school classmates in our chat group are asking where can we buy home test kits because none are readily available here. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Look at that high positivity rate.

This is horrible. Many people will be without work again and won’t have means to feed their families. What we need are more free or affordable tests and not checkpoints!

This government is useless.

Flu medicine shortage

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Everybody is sick right now due to the drop in temperature plus people were up and about during the holidays like the pandemic is just a distant memory. Good thing I was able to stock up a bit when the girls were battling colds, plus I had some medicines when I prepared for Delta surge last year. However, my stock is dwindling because I am down with colds as well.

But of course DOH had to say something like that to prevent panic buying. The reality on the ground is, everything is sold out now. Even Zennya has sent a message through their app that says Covid tests are fully booked that’s why they’re extending their operating hours until 11 pm to accommodate requests.

I ordered from Bayer’s page on Shopee several tubes of Berocca, which helped me to recover from Covid. In case we get COVID again, I still have Lianhua here but so far we only needed antihistamines and Sinupret forte for our colds and cough. Nasal sprays have done their work on the kids while I am still torturing my nostrils with it.

And oh, teas are wonderful, not just the one with caffeine though (my shrink forbids me as it will clash with my meds).

Ginger and lemon infusion tea. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Because I’m so paranoid, I’m no long going out and I’ve used my Puregold app to order groceries. My problem is fresh veggies. Let’s see if I can drive tomorrow to UP for that.

And this is what I’m talking about the localization of social marketing strategies, just like the communication of disaster mitigation and awareness on the local government level. The government and developmental workers shouldn’t use a bullet approach of one-size fits all. It’s never going to be effective. In the AKAP stages of social marketing (Awareness, Knowledge, Attitude, Practice), you need to be able to communicate well on the Awareness level and Knowledge exchange stage for Attitudes to change and push them into favorable Practices (in this case, getting their vax). If people don’t receive the message well on the Awareness stage, how can they even accept the Knowledge? They will just reject it.

Sheesh. These people should employ development communicators if they want something to happen. I remember writing some proposal for tuberculosis innoculation project of WHO though I cannot remember if I did this for graduate school or for an employment exam.

Anyway, the localization approach was the reason why the zero polio campaign was successful–until Duterte came along–because the DOH then was employing something right at that time. I miss Dr. Juan Flavier for his pro-development, proactive, and pro-poor policies at DOH and at the Senate.

DOH is such a mess right now.

On the second day

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This year’s theme is self-love.

Last year was just brutal and I couldn’t define what it was but it was an uphill battle. Thank God for supportive friends, some of whom had to literally drag me out of the house to join the living.

So as part of this year’s theme, I’m celebrating the things that made me who I am.

My gallery wall. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
My photos and my watercolors. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
When I was in high school I experimented with a Chinese paint brush. My control was dismal but at least I tried. Photo and art by CallMeCreation.com

I ran out of picture frames so I guess I would have to order online from Ikea.ph instead of going there again. I have a lot of photos I can print and hang. Or I can paint again with watercolors. But I’m super rusty. It has been 25 years since I have picked up a watercolor brush. I’m not good but at least I’m enjoying it. I’m not even aiming to have an exhibit like my sister but this is just something for my own home. Some of the better watercolors I did in high school were given away to classmates.

I’ll take photography seriously again, just like when I was in college. I didn’t invest in DSLRs because I know how time-consuming photography is as a hobby to justify the expensive equipment. And time is something I didn’t have for decades. For now I’ll use what I have–my cellphone and my Fujifilm XQ1–until I can say that I can now commit time before I step up and buy myself a mirrorless Fujifilm, which I find to be the best when it comes to low-light photography. I’ve worked with Canons, I had a Nikon, and two Olympus cameras but I find Fuji to be the best when it comes to color rendering and low light scenes. I have yet to try a Lumix. I’ve read about Hasselblads when I was still fooling around with films because those are the go-to cameras for medium formats–for book covers and posters. But those things are out of reach of the general public, especially now in digital. I’ve only seen a Hasselblad in a studio for portrait photography.

I lost all my Lomography cameras 😔 I had a Holga and I still had a black abd white film stuck in there when I left it in the old house. All that is left of my Lomo stuff is the 135 film converter. 😕

Rose tea to stave off colds. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I’ve been imbibing copious amounts of tea as I’ve been feeling under the weather. I might have contracted the girls’ colds so I took 500 mg of vitamin C, Neozep every 8 hrs, and a lot of bed rest. I slept early last night and slept some more after lunch. So far it has worked but I’m refraining from going out because this may turn out to be the dreaded omicron variant. It can’t hurt to be paranoid; look at what happened last year when I thought what the girls had was just an ordinary flu turned out to be Covid that knocked me down.

There is this Gwyneth Chua from US who broke her quarantine stay to party in Poblacion, Makati. She was positive for Covid and has infected 15 people whom she had dinner with or partied with. Stupid, stupid privileged asshole. And Twitter has the receipts. As it turns out, she studies at De La Salle University and Lasallians are now disowning her.

https://manilastandard.net/news/314026121/woman-cuts-quarantine-to-party-15-test-positive.html

Now, we’re back to a higher restriction due to tripling of cases in the last three days. Another lockdown to stem another Covid wave is not far behind. 😩