THERE it goes. The call of medical frontliners to revert the quarantine status of Metro Manila from general community quarantine (GCQ) to enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) has been denied Saturday night. Such a decision involved some balancing act weighing things that will be good for the majority's welfare.
The numbers are still growing. We have not yet flattened the curve indicating that infections continue due to inadequate measures to fight the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) up to the last man infected.
Hospitals in the capital region and even a number in the provinces are swelling. Too many are patients, Covid and non-Covid alike, are confined in medical institutions, thus, making medical practitioners and personnel the busiest for the past several months.
The clamor of them to declare Metro Manila under the ECQ is to give them some "breathing space," given their unselfish answers to their calls of duty since the onset of the pandemic. In short, medical professionals and personnel are now suffering from fatigue from their medical practice.
The risks they face from their medical practice are immeasurable. Aside from their Hippocratic Oath to abide, they have the compassion to serve the public especially now that we are on a global medical crisis.
In other words, medical doctors, nurses and other medical personnel are now badly needed. However, they too are humans and are susceptible to wearing out now that their patients' numbers seem infinite. A lot of them, especially in Metro Manila, deserve some break too.
Their call is serious, drawing some support from other government officials, various private organizations and the netizens. Nonetheless, Senator Cynthia Villar opposed the call while saying that medical workers should instead perform their jobs well.
From her statement, it appears that such workers in the medical field are not doing their jobs well, adding insult to the latter's plight and soliciting the ire of netizens who share sentiments to medical workers and other frontliners. The senator should have instead made some words of encouragement and inspiration to workers instead of making some hurting remarks.
Since day one of the ECQ, medical workers and other frontliners are hailed as heroes of the pandemic. Several of them met their demise while in the line of their duties. They sacrificed their lives "so that others may live" while we are in the fight against the pandemic.
The balancing act of the government in considering the economy and the health of the people is a very difficult thing. Medical workers are quite tired since March of this year and truly deserve even a little respite. As I have mentioned, we have not yet flattened the curve and the fight is still on. It's quite uncertain when will the war against the virus will end.
We need medical workers much just like how they need a breather from their much-demanding tasks since the start of the pandemic.
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