Since the stringent measures that resulted in the extreme Community Quarantine (ECQ) in March, the National Capital Region (NCR) and its neighboring areas such my province, eased into a more tolerable modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) which began in June. Before the decision to relax the quarantine early May, people had a mixed reaction to it. There are those who are excited as they are anxious to return to work - understandable in my opinion because enduring a 3 - month quarantine takes toll on one's savings and finances. There were also those, like me, who feared that allowing majority of the public to go out would exacerbate the number of infected.

Now two months after MGCQ was imposed the number of people with COVID19 skyrocketed, with daily reported cases easily exceeding 500, driving the medical front liners to the brink of exhaustion and called out the government to revert to MECQ, which it did and thus started implementing the same in August 4 and is expected to continue for a two-week period.

This breather or "time out" period as it is popularly called is not just an R&R time for doctors and nurses. This is a time to reconstruct, reexamine existing government plans in handling the pandemic situation in the country. If we will simply stay in our homes again, we know this type of action is futile. We have done this back in March. Everyone stayed home waiting for the virus to dissipate, only it did not. It lingered and waited till our coffers were empty and had no choice but to venture out.

We need a better plan this time around, because we cannot afford another lengthy lock down and I pray that with all we have seen thus far we come up with a better solution, and that it is not yet too late.