14 Days: Life and Lies of a COVID Pos

 24 OCTOBER 2020

I woke up with my bedside hotel landline ringing. I tried to drown the loud screeching sound of the telephone in vain. I was four hours along with my feeble sleep and the very last thing I need right now is to be awakened by no more than a telephone call. I was adamant to ignore the call especially when all I ever wanted was to get a decent sleep–after all, what does one want when the attempt from the night before dragged longer than anticipated? I should definitely not drink more than two cups of coffee despite it being a Friday from here on, I thought.

Friday was the usual routine–a cacophony of keyboard punching, mental hustle, and several Chrome tabs opened–trying to get the work done before everyone retires for the weekend. This is going to be the last time I’d be working from home in a hotel. Or so I thought.

 

I arrived in my hometown of Zamboanga City on 12 October 2020 following an hour of flight with nothing but anticipation and anxiousness in my pockets. It wasn’t the usual happy flight that I’d take. Nothing was happy about that flight if I am being honest. I got through the airport protocol at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) with so much trepidation. In my head, I had the feeling the real ordeal has yet to come. I didn’t have an iota of an idea what waits for me when the plane lands at Zamboanga International Airport.

The plane started to descend 15 minutes before three in the afternoon. Despite the voices in my head telling me to expect the worst, I found myself hopeful for the best. After all, I have my papers with me, which are weighing heavier than usual on my hands. If I have these papers, what could go wrong…right?

Minutes after the plane landed, I subjected myself through airport protocols which included having my documents checked at the entrance of the arrival area. I never saw any familiar face queued to get their documents checked. I am at home. Yet something about it felt alien somehow–I felt I was a stranger in my own hometown.

I got my papers checked at the counter near the entrance by people wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). The coronavirus pandemic did a lot of changes in the way people travel by air. For one, these stringent checks were never applied for domestic travels before corona. Before flying home, I had to secure the authority to travel which I can only use for a period of time. I was allowed entry after my papers were checked.

My arms were starting to give up on the weight of the carry-on baggage I had with me. I proceeded to the baggage claiming area to get the rest of my bags where a small number of people were waiting for their bags to be carried over by the conveyor belt, which has started rolling to life. I scanned the area; I got the sense of familiarity not with the tarpaulin bearing the usual signage welcoming guests, tourists, and returned travelers to Asia’s Latin City. The place looked the same. I took the scene in and yet I didn’t get the same welcoming feeling I always get whenever I come home.

I wheeled my bags out of the reception area and had to go through another check before I can finally step out of the airport premises. I felt slightly sick from hunger, not having enough sleep from the night before, not having my usual amount of caffeine in my system, and migraine.

I felt punched in the gut when the airport personnel donned in his PPE before me, features slightly obscured by the translucent plastic cover curtained between us, informed me I have to undergo hotel quarantine. There can be no rational justification when he said the swab test result secured from Manila was already more than five days old. No, his words were “your swab test result is already expired.” The hammer in my head started pounding heavier, cracking my skull open with every bang. I felt wanting to spiral down and faint.

I told the airport personnel I was informed the result has 14 days' validity. But I was admonished and had been left with no choice but to comply; I had no fight left in me not with the drowning exhaustion and pounding in my head.

There were 21 of us taxied through the familiar streets of Zamboanga towards the hotel where we will have to quarantine over the next 14 days. I am starting to feel numb and my mind is starting to shut down. I wanted nothing but to lie down and rest the exhaustion away.

 

14 OCTOBER 2020

Well-rested and already half-way through my work, my concentration was peeled away by the other guy in the room. He seemed to be talking to someone over the phone in a dialect I can’t place. I was slightly annoyed by the series of phone calls he would make, as though informing the entire family tree he was in a hotel for managed isolation.

The night before, after I closed my laptop and called it a day from work, the other guy in the room attempted to make small talks with me. I placed my eyeglasses on the bedside table and rubbed my temple when he asked what I do for a living. I told him I am a content editor. In the almost five-minute exchange, most of which I tried to blackout, I did not offer any more information about me. But I was able to get that he is a collector for payments for items bought off the market, he hailed from Pampanga but is working in Zamboanga with his brothers and father, and he flew in without swab test from Manila knowing well enough he can get the test done in Zamboanga.

I was fast asleep no more than 10 minutes later.

With enough caffeine in my system and sleep, I recall the conversation I had with the other guy in the room. As I go through the details, my mind slowly hummed to life like a Pentium II computer. As the realization hit like a thousand speeding bullet trains all at once, I felt my body started to drain of blood. My heart started to pound as the mechanics of reason, rationality, and common sense ticked in place.

At that point, about three things I was absolutely positive. One, the guy I was sharing a room with has been inconspicuously irresponsible by flying in with no swab test. How that was possible was beyond my comprehension. Second, I was ninety-nine point nine percent at risk of contracting COVID now, much higher than when I was in Manila where cases are growing astronomically, knowing I did not share the same bubble with this person I was sharing a room with. And third, I have to get myself out of here if I wanted to stand a chance of staying clear until this managed isolation comes to an end.

 

I AM A JOURNALIST

I abandoned my work and immediately started writing a Facebook post detailing the harrowing discovery. I can’t believe I allowed myself to live with abandoned rationality for more than 24 hours. How could I have missed the obvious wagging its tail right before me?

I tried to summon all sense of rationality and information about COVID protocols which I amassed while working for an Australia New Zealand media intelligence company as a broadcast writer over the last three years. First, if you are a suspected COVID positive patient, you will have to be subjected to hotel quarantine following a successful transborder journey. Second, quarantine is equivocal to isolation. Each Person Under Investigation (PUI) should be separated from one another unless they belonged in the same bubble prior to coming into Zamboanga. Careful monitoring should take place over the course of 14 days carried out by a medical team. All PUIs are going to be given enough medical and security information. 

Whoever is running the COVID quarantine protocol in the city was clearly misinformed and was implementing the protocols wrongly. Otherwise, this would not have happened. How this was allowed to happen, and how this was not rectified, I have no idea. But I did not come home to see myself contracting the virus and put my life and the lives of my family members at risk. If for anything, I came home to seek asylum and escape the probability of me being infected by the deadliest virus known to living memory since the Spanish Influenza pandemic.

Less than an hour since the post went live, it gained traction from my friends on Facebook informing me I should get a separate room and that this sort of madness should never have happened. It most certainly got the attention of a city official who tagged the person in charge of the whole situation.

Moments later, I was on the phone with the head of the office overseeing the situation with Locally Stranded Individuals (LSIs) flying in Zamboanga. I mustered she is a woman who knows what she’s doing; I only saw her on TV and never in person. Not yet. Her voice coming rather raspy at the other end of the line has the staccato of command and authority. I told her my side of the story careful not to edit or omit anything lest it would cost me my reputation as a professional.

My airing of concern wasn’t done with malicious intents; I did so because being exposed to news about COVID over the last six months as part of your profession, it did seem like you have a part to play to help rectify, if not strengthen, the COVID response. More importantly, as a a journalist, it is my responsibility to seek for redress and hold people accountable for their mistakes—people in power who were given the task to uphold the rights of people to safety and live as recognised citizen of the land.

The lady I was speaking to apologized for the mishap and gave me her side of the story, a proffered chapter to put the issue to rest. What she revealed made no sense to me. If for anything, it sounded silly to use the budget card. Nonetheless, one can only be grateful for the arrangements one can make to rectify the situation.

Later that night, I lay clean and relieved on my bed alone in my new room. As I closed my eyes, a question popped that really had me going: how many others have been subjected to the same ordeal as I had? And at what cost?

24 OCTOBER 2020

It’s no use. I have to pick up the goddamn phone. I picked up the receiver and a friendly female voice greeted me at the other line. I returned the greeting sounding slightly annoyed and tired. I was blinking the sleep away as I take the information in: you tested positive for COVID-19 and you will be taken to an isolation facility.

Once, as a kid, my mum took me to a store filled with ornate and fragile-looking china vases and jars. Every corner was graced by items of different sizes, lengths, and designs—breakable at inexperienced and careless hands. Mum was examining a blue vase the size of a pineapple with cherubs protruding at its bulb area. The store clerk informed her it was a blue marble vase imported from China. My mum was relishing the design and she had a look on her eyes that gave the impression the vase on her hand was worth a dime.

I decided to galivant the whole store myself; not that I was interested. God help me, I know I was never into fragile chinas. On the shelf nearby, a woman reach out for an ornate red vase. It was a ghastly boring vase. The woman was taller than my mum and was donned in full burqa regalia—her hands enveloped in gloves the same color as her burqa. She seemed to be a rich Hadja.

In the small window that her religion allowed the world to see of her and vice versa, it was evident that she was examining the vase with so much fascination although I can’t see why. It’s ornate but something about it made the vase boring. The woman continued to admire the ghastly boring vase before returning it to the shelf. I peeled my attention away but not long after the loud cracking sound of something breaking to pieces filled the small store. I spun around and saw the woman crouching down with the store clerk beside her looking alarmed and outraged. On the parquet floor was the broken =P=2500 red china vase.

With the receiver on my ear and sleep completely nowhere to be found, I found myself looking back at that memory. Only, I was the broken vase on the parquet floor; broken to pieces and absolutely beyond repair.

You tested positive for COVID-19…

The call ended with the front desk personnel telling me to prepare my things as someone will stay in touch. I wanted nothing but to be eaten by the mattress. I stared blankly on the white ceiling with my mind already in full shutdown mode.

There are tests which you wish the results were rather positive and there are tests that you wish the results were negative. The swab test conducted on the morning of 18 October is one of the tests which falls under the latter.

Despite the full-on bloodletting brought by the news, one thing was clawing its way out of the chaos: I am going to die.

I took several breaths in and out to calm me down before I go on a full panic mode. There has got to be some rational explanation to take me out of the darkness and into the sun. Maybe the test was a rort. Maybe they mistook me for someone else. Maybe I can take another test for a second opinion.

But more importantly, why was the front desk the one who called and broke the news? Something was definitely not right.

After splashing water on my face and a glass full of water, I called the front desk once again. First, I asked if they are certain my swab result returned a positive result. The woman on the other line said yes. I asked what name was given. The woman said my name. Finally, I asked to be connected to the City Health Office (CHO) landline number. I want to be certain. I remained skeptical because the front desk had no authority to disclose the news to me. The front desk was not supposed to be the one who will inform me of this, to begin with. The woman on the other line said she is at no liberty to share the number of the person-in-charge unless permission was granted to do so. She informed me someone will contact me from the City Health Office within the day. I dropped the call rather forcefully without saying goodbye.

My mind was racing with no clear destination at sight. I tried to make sense of what was happening but nothing was making sense save from the fact that I could indeed have tested positive for COVID-19. But why did CHO not call me and instead entrusted information to the front desk? Isn’t that a breach of medical protocol? A breach of patient-doctor confidentiality?

The day progressed like a slow burn. CHO never got in touch to inform me what will happen next, where I will be taken, who will take me. I called the front desk several times but informed me they have no further details. I tried calling CHO but the landline on my bedside table would not allow me to call an outside contact. I had a panic attack but was lucky to have medication with me. It wasn’t until 9PM that I was told I will not be taken that night. I tried to sleep the night away but my mind is a pool of question marks instead of periods.

I reached out to CHO using my own phone. With growing trepidation and mounting anxiety, I reached out to CHO the following day. If I was truly COVID positive, the first thing I want is information–verified and honest information–on what will happen next. Medical advice should come after wherever I will be taken. All of which never came. I am definitely in the middle of a storm and respite is nowhere in sight. I am in Zamboanga for over half a month now and this is the first time I am experiencing a blackout. I was left in the dark as if completely neglected with promises of proper COVID response inexistent.

I learned that afternoon that I was indeed COVID-19 positive and will be wheeled away to an isolation facility.

I have never given much thought to dying. I have always thought I will be safe from this virus. I guess despite all measures observed, if someone in the response line gets their protocols wrong, your whole defense could come crumbling down. I am definitely falling into the chasms of my deepest fears.

I was taken to an obscured area for further “managed isolation”. There are no doctors or nurses on sight. I remained ignorant of what will happen as medical advice was watered down to me being given multivitamins upon entry.

I was led into a multipurpose hall-like area where other asymptomatic COVID-19 patients were placed. The area is exactly what you can imagine a poorly-coordinated and funded COVID response can offer. We are not separated by any coverings or cubicle. No medical professional is visiting us to check our conditions on a daily basis. All of us are just waiting for the day when our “quarantine” expires and we will be allowed to go home.

FINAL THOUGHTS

In stark comparison with other Local Government Units’ (LGUs’) COVID-19 responses, the situation I was subjected to was nowhere near standard. First, information dissemination from top-down was poorly coordinated. Information was all over the place and there is no telling who is telling the truth. Second, budget constraints can water the response down. But no LGU with proper intentions would allow such harrowing coordination and inefficiency to exist. No city leader would leave people in the dark by not designating medical professionals to attend to patients’ regardless if they are asymptomatic or not.

We are facing the deadliest pandemic in living memory since the Spanish Influenza in an era where we do stand a chance to beat the virus before the death toll can surpass the previous pandemic or WWII. What stands between us beating the virus is inefficient leaders, personal agenda above people’s best interest, and sheer and utter stupidity.