What does the new normal look like? It looks like this:
What is he doing???? This security guard is dumping sanitizer onto a tiny mat that you walk on and....I don't know...sanitize your shoes? Kill the coronavirus on your shoes??? Seriously what the heck? What else does the new normal look like? How about this:
This is the new normal? Shutting most of the entrance to the store and having people wait in a line because only 5 are allowed in at a time is now normal? This is supposed to keep the public healthy??
No!
This new normal is not about keeping people healthy at all. The government's main concern is controlling individual behavior because it allows them to exercise petty authority and gives their otherwise meaningless existence a sliver of self importance.
We were told that social distancing was necessary for a limited time to flatten the curve and get back to normal. Now we're being told that social distancing is the new normal forever. Even though it can only ever be selectively enforced because it is totally unfeasible in the real world.
The government has even crafted legislation to enforce this new normal.
The government has even crafted legislation to enforce this new normal.
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| https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1265835/house-execs-define-new-normal-in-newly-filed-bill |
“This bill will prepare and educate the Filipino public for life after the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions and to adapt to the new norms of physical distancing. It institutionalizes a new way of life after the Enhanced Community Quarantine and serves as a guide to the public,” it added.
The bill proposes that among the measures to be imposed in public places are the mandatory wearing of masks, the availability of handwashing or sanitizing stations in public areas, temperature checks, and physical distancing of at least one meter, but preferable two meters, in all public spaces.
For public transportation, physical distancing shall also apply in ticket queues, and passengers in all types of public transportation vehicles shall be required to wash their hands or sanitize before boarding the vehicle and be seated a seat apart and be at all times in face masks.
“Contact-less” payment mechanism shall also be implemented.
"It institutionalizes a new way of life." What that means is that it regulates new behaviors and creates a new class of criminals if they do not behave in the approved way such as wearing a face mask in public. People will also have to practice social distancing in public at all times. Everyone is on board with the new normal. From the DOH to the DOT all sectors of Philippine life will have to adjust. There is no going back as Harry Roque said.
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| https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2020/04/26/2009938/we-cannot-go-back-general-community-quarantine-new-normal-malacaang-says |
In an interview with DZMM on Sunday morning, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said that the Philippines cannot return to life as usual because of the overwhelming effects of the global pandemic.
Meanwhile...“We are no longer back to normal as we know it po. The GCQ is already that, it is the new normal. For as long as there is still no vaccine, we cannot go back to normal as we know it,” he said in a mix of English and Filipino.
Two children had died while 42 others had been downed by what health officials believed was an outbreak of diarrhea on an island village of Maguindanao, health authorities reported.
Health Minister Saffrulah Dipatuan of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao confirmed to reporters that the diarrhea was triggered by contaminated water sources.
Dipatuan said a health team sent to Barangay Bongo Island off the coast of Parang, Maguindanao, traced the contaminated water from two sources tapped by residents, who are mostly Maguindanaon fishermen.
One of the water sources is an open well, while the other is a closed well, but both have been found to have a high concentration of e-coli, Dipatuan said.
“One team sent there to treat the sick and investigate had gathered stool samples that confirmed high e-coli bacteria from water sources,” Dipatuan told reporters.
Many residents have no toilets and dispose of their human wastes elsewhere.
The dry spell has ushered in, the time when residents rely mainly on open wells as sources of drinking water.
Wearing face masks, washing your hands, and social distancing are not going to help a community whose water supply is contaminated. What the Philippines needs is not a new normal where everyone is forced to wear a face mask at all times or wash their hands every time they enter a store. Rather the Philippines needs a total make over and a revamping of society at practically every level. A make over which will lead to a healthier and more sanitary nation.
Where to even begin? How about the prisons and jails? Overcrowding has long been a problem in the Philippines. It is only now with the threat of COVID-19 that the government has decided alleviate the situation.
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| https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1266479/govt-expedites-probation-parole-work-to-decongest-jails-amid-health-threat |
“I’ve heard from the mouth of (Justice) Sec. Guevarra himself that they are expediting the processing of individuals who may be qualified for probation and parole to decongest our detention facilities,” Palace spokesman Harry Roque said in an interview over ABS-CBN News Channel Wednesday.
Why wait for a crisis to occur before decongesting the jails and prisons? Why not have this be everyday policy? Of course this would also mean speeding up the courts and not having trials last years on end.
Can you see what a new normal with the goal of making society heathy really entails? It requires a total revamping of Philippine society at every single level. From the courts down to the way people behave. Not astroturfing society by having people wear face masks and wash their hands or stay 6 feet away from everyone.
Or covering EVERYTHING in plastic!
Creating a fire hazard won't stop the spread of COVID-19 but that's not stoping Robinson's Supermarket.
Even one local SM Supermarket locked their side door creating a one way in, one way out situation, and a fire hazard.
Why did these stores do this? Now everyone has to enter and exit the same door and that is not social distancing. How is this not illegal?
Oh wait. It is illegal!
Section 9. Prohibited Acts. The following are declared as prohibited act and omission.
(f) Locking fire exits during period when people are inside the building;
Is anything going to change in the Philippines? No. Not really. Not fundamentally. I have been out and about since ECQ and GCQ was lifted and it's pretty much the same. I have to wear a face mask, get my body scanned, and get spritzed with alcohol if I want to go inside a store but that's rather superficial. Even before COVID-19 people were wearing face masks because the air is so polluted. People are continuing with the same behaviors from all I have seen.
The Philippines needs a lot of changes if it wants to become sanitary and healthy. To do that the mindset of the people must be changed. Here is a great example of the mindset that has kept the Philippines a polluted wasteland.
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| https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1277808/waste-segregation-more-crucial-amid-pandemic |
Waste segregation at source has become more critical amid the pandemic as the volume of potentially infectious waste from household sources is growing, an official of the National Solid Waste Management Commission (NSWMC) said on Tuesday.
Given these circumstances under the “new normal,” reduction in waste generation must be given priority, while garbage collection systems must quickly respond to this growing concern, said Crispian Lao, NSWMC vice chair who represents the private sector in the commission.
A reduction in waste must be given priority? Sure. That is what RA 9003 is about. But no one pays attention to that law and there is no infrastructure in place to implement it.
Right now the new normal involves a lot of plastic with the intent of separating people. If the Philippines wants to get healthy that is not the way. Running water, toilets, proper sanitation and waste collection, and a mindset against littering is needed. More than that is needed. A whole revamping society is needed.
That change won't come easy.
That change won't come easy.
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