Dispatches by Adrian Conoza

There are a few notes on the desktop screen, among them a quote from Queen Elizabeth's message on this crisis. I really find it comforting. A lot of headlines these past few weeks: Wimbledon cancelled. UAAP 83 cancelled. Testing expanded to the vulnerable in the population. Increasing number in recoveries and deaths. And more recoveries as of this writing! Boris Johnson admitted to ICU. And finally recovering! But the most saddening news for me so far, the Enhanced Community Quarantine extended. Why the most saddening if for the betterment of our community? That and more are what I have reflected on in the most recent weeks of the now-extended quarantine. More groceries Just a week after I bought groceries for the family and some medications for my mother, I was once again given the task to buy prescribed meds and do the groceries that I think would be enough for the supposedly last two weeks of the quarantine. Of course, learning from my previous trip to ...

Increasing number of cases. The folly of a government official. The first positive case from a head-of-state. The postponement of the Summer Olympics. These are few of the headlines that shook our world as the battle to curb the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues.  Likewise, this pandemic has affected every individual in many ways. With most of us experiencing some sort of 'house arrest', I got more observations in a quarantined life that suddenly altered my schedule, activities, and even attitude toward things.  Time for TV It was more evident a week after the quarantine kicked off that I'm getting a 'reunion' with a medium I've grown up with (along with radio) before I got to enter the World Wide Web in the middle of Grade 5—television.  Years before the flat screen, I remember how my day went on going from one channel to another out of around 10 channels in free-to-air. My days would start with the TV on the mornings show by either ABS-...