Coronavirus and the intense feeling of returning back to the Philippines and unto Adelaide.

The 2019-Novel Coronavirus or Covid-19 is still wreaking havoc across the globe with almost a thousand fatalities as of today where majority of deaths occurred in the heavily beaten city of Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak.

Here in Singapore, the reported number of confirmed cases of NCoV is now at 45 where at least half are local transmission cases. The ‘Disease Outbreak Response System Condition’ (DORSCON) level was raised to orange last week (the third highest level) which triggered panic. A lot of people went into a buying frenzy at the supermarkets and emptied majority of the shelves displaying essential goods such as rice grains, canned food, instant noodles and toilet paper (I have no idea why they bought 40 rolls, maybe they will TP someone’s house), a different level of kiasu-nism was exhibited at this time (I’m gonna write about this next time). Since the alert level was raised last week, a strong sense of paranoia, fear and anxiety gripped the island, some are rationally scared and the others are just kiasu.

I must admit, I’m scared and anxious too, not just for myself but for my husband too. His line of work requires him to be present at his workplace and talk to people face to face. I’m scared because we have our whole life ahead of us, we are bound for Adelaide, South Australia by middle of this year. We want to be there, we want to raise our small family there. We know in our hearts that Adelaide is the place for us, it is waiting for us and with this virus going around and with us being here in this densely populated place with low regard for hygiene (yep, I saw a guy scratching his butt with his bare hands for a good 1-2 mins yesterday), I can’t help but think, why are we even here? For the money? Why are we still here? Can we go back home to the Philippines already? Why do we have to work outside of the Philippines? Why can’t our government provide us a decent paying jobs? Why am I not rich? Arrghh! All these questions kept me awake until 3 am last night, I was restless and anxious.

We still need to be here until middle of the year and who knows what will happen in the coming days/months. I pray to God for this outbreak to be over soon and for His Divine protection.