LOOKS like the trauma or psychological disruption of the pandemic on our people may take longer than we expect.
Despite the Presidential order on the wearing of facemasks as voluntary and optional, many are still haunted by the pandemic.
In most parts of National Capital Region (NCR) I have gone lately, except hospitals which strictly require facemask and carrying of vaccination cards, most commercial establishments, malls, private and public offices, even public markets, still require people to wear facemask, while others just “remind” people to observe minimum health protocols.
Recently, when I was entering a pharmacy to purchase my medicines, a middle-aged man behind me was stopped by the security guard for not wearing a facemask. I paused and listened; the man was arguing, sometimes yelling, at the guard, insisting that facemask is already optional. The guard did not budge in defending this and that. The irritated man finally shouted “fff...k you and your company! You will lose more customers!” and left.
Just wondering how many more of this unwanted and scandalous scene is taking place anywhere.
I have noticed that some of those no longer wearing facemasks are the male youth.
Still there are more who seem comfortable and happy to wear facemasks, as if it has become a part of their daily personal effect, and a sense of personal security. I sometimes feel the same, some sort of psychological defense, I like wearing a facemask which I know is not necessary anymore, but I can’t just explain why I keep on doing it.
Covid infection cases are now negligible, if at all, there was truth to it.
Obviously its impact has penetrated our psyche, disrupted the normality in our society. It seems to have evolved into a new culture of security in an environment filled with insecurity and abnormality. People don’t like it and want to stop it, but they cannot do away with its implicit constraints.
And it’s good business, profit-raking, for big manufacturers of facemasks, alcohol, and other fad materials that developed with it.
Unless some laudable theories and insights could debunk the “evil purpose,” “the myth,” behind the pandemic, as some science quarters conjure, only then can the post Covid abnormality be stopped.
Meantime, let’s live with it, and prepare for any new pandemic in near future, which might be more destructive and devilish, nobody knows.
Pandemic has obviously become a serious medical concern that spring from our plundered planet engineered by the global elite powers.