THE city started fielding soldiers and policemen to enforce the enhanced community quarantine last Monday. Good.
It did not have to come to this but we could not seem to follow simple rules on our own. The irony is that these rules were meant to protect us. Stay at home, leaving only when necessary and practice social distancing.
Or maybe, the government is to blame for not adding the warning that you could get infected with the coronavirus and probably die or infect your loved ones and they will probably die? Is there no charm in subtlety anymore?
No, we’re not stupid, just stubborn. We understand the rules and what drives them but will not hesitate to break them anyway when breaking suits us.
And so we have invited heavy government presence where there should have been less or even none at all. The checkpoints wouldn’t have become necessary if we had the good sense not to drive out for the littlest reason. True, the chances of you spreading or contacting the virus while inside the car are not greater than where you’re at home. But unless you’re just on a joyride and will not at any time step out of the car, the chances grow the moment you drop by your favorite bakeshop to satisfy a craving for their croissant.
So get yourselves used to the presence of armed men in fatigues asking to see your ID, driver’s license and ECQ pass. (I don’t have to because I do not have any intention of going out until the quarantine is lifted.) From what I heard, the soldiers and policemen are generally courteous so getting used to them will not be a problem.
Still the idea that we have to be compelled to do what we ought to be doing on our own rankles. Our policemen should have been out there catching the bad guys instead of watching out for us, supposedly the good ones. When soldiers man checkpoints, it is usually for national security. But here they are, managing traffic. Our pigheadedness is keeping them away from their job.
Nobody ever said that enduring the quarantine is going to be easy. We have to be inventive in spending the 24 hours each day that we’re confined at home or risk sinking into depression.
But it must be harder for those who are used to and crave the limelight. Every day that passes without them being mentioned in the papers or in the six o’clock news must be excruciating.
We have different ways of coping, different strokes for different folks, as they say. Reading, cooking, eating, conversations with the family, playing with the grandchildren and watching “Friends,” “Suits” and “Crash landing on You” on Netflix.
Here’s a special piece of advice to those who miss the action and the publicity. Stay at home and keep quiet. To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven. I did not write that. Somebody else did more than 2,000 years ago.