Life During the Pandemic Year 2020: My Personal Reflections (part 2)

 It would seem preposterous to say that the COVID-19 pandemic brought in nothing else, other than loss of  lives, massive loss of livelihood due to economic recession, and all sorts of sufferings in catastrophic magnitude.  On the brighter side of things, a few things came out good as the pandemic continued to rampage humanity.

As a biologist and believer of evolution, I reckon that COVID-19 is one force, just like any deadly disease, that drives the natural selection process.  I hate what  I just posited. And many people will hate me, too,  for  seemingly insensitive  and for lack of empathy  for those who lost a loved one or two, to the disease.  But ‘tis the sad biological reality, as it occurs in all forms of life, the human species is continuously evolving.

I never had taught online classes before. When all classes were unexpectedly ordered to transition to remote delivery with the start of the pandemic, by force majeure, I had to change the pedagogy halfway through the semester. It was difficult for me, even more difficult for my students!  Online platform may be effectively used in some courses, I thought. But it might not be good for skills-based courses especially in the sciences with laboratory components- the reason for my utter lack of interest in teaching courses online.  But this pandemic had me underwent a sharp paradigm shift, affording new opportunity for me to acquire and sharpen new instructional strategies in an online environment. As such, it helped me develop professionally!

I have diverse groups of students in my classes, a commonplace demography in community colleges. Dealing with these students, who were coping up with adversities in their family and work situations, taught myself more about empathy and compassion.  I needed to be more flexible and more accommodating to my students  than what I once was before, without compromising expectations.

It turned out, working or shall I say, teaching remotely at home, had its perks. I never had to wake so early in the morning to catch up the 8:00 lecture, and never had to get home late after the late night classes. I could be in my classroom without dressing nicely, so that literally, I could teach while on my underwear!  It saved me some pennies since I didn’t have to leave home to  drive to work.

It was during this pandemic year when I got the most precious gift – the coming of our grandson. This doesn’t mean though that my own kids were not that precious.  Absolutely, each one is! But the arrival of Keith  Sebastian (aka Patoot), brought in a different kind of joy, only grandparents can relate. This amazingly adorable and admirable rascal has become the center of our world. His presence in our lives made us forget, albeit perfunctory, the conundrum COVID-19 is spreading. He sure is our ultimate source of happiness.

When will this pandemic end is a question in everybody’s mind. And the answer remains in the dark.  What is certain is that the coronavirus will continue to live among us.  As science has gained  better understanding the virus  and has developed the vaccines against the virus, humanity will soon be spared from further devastations caused by this pandemic.

My hope is that, soon, things will get  normal, even if it’s going to be a new normal!

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What are your personal reflections about the pandemic year?  Please write your comments below. Better still, please follow me in all my blogs.  Happy new year everyone!

Life During the Pandemic Year 2020: My Personal Reflections (part 1)

 

My wife and I welcomed 2020 on a Carnival Cruise in the Caribbean. It was our very first time to board a gargantuan ship, jam packed with  people, who just like us, were trying  to punctuate the holiday season with a different note – aboard a carrier with inclusive luxurious amenities, where a variety of foods is unlimited,  booze  inundating, entertainment  never ending, and not to mention the offshore excursions. It was a fun-filled weeklong carefree vacation!

In the weeks that followed, a novel coronavirus – later on identified as SARS Cov-2, known to cause the COVID-19 disease, topped in the international news headlines. The virus spread faster than it was thought that, it had literally gone viral (pun intended) in social media. Soon, while epidemiologists learned more information about the virus and the disease, worldwide, scores of people get the infection and among them –especially the elderly and those with health issues succumbed to COVID-19 related deaths. The alarmingly increasing global morbidity and mortality rates (even up to the present), prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare it as a pandemic!

Rumors had it that reports about the coronavirus surfaced as early as November (2019), and considering the scarcity if not lack of knowledge about the virus, it could’ve started transmitting earlier than it was reported. In hindsight, this virus could’ve been carried by a few passengers in the Carnival ship we’re in.  Who knows?  That cruise we took happened in a good timing. Otherwise, had we scheduled it during the Spring Break, it could’ve become a long, unwanted, crazy and life-threatening ordeal of a quarantine hell!

The COVID-19 pandemic happens to be the second in my lifetime, AIDS being the first. But its impact is nowhere near AIDS.  Other known pandemics include the bubonic plague or Black Death in the 14^th-15^th century, and the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918. Humanity is so continuously under constant threat with emerging deadly diseases, many were feared to reach pandemic proportion if they were not prevented promptly. There was  MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome), SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), Swine Flu (H1N1), Ebola and Zika.

 This current pandemic seems like a curse or a nightmare people would unimaginably want. Global lockdown, in an attempt to avert COVID-19 transmission, has been extremely catastrophic in many fronts. It has needlessly yet significantly altered the way people live, and die! It caused massive job loss, occurring at exponential rate. Many families plunged into the uncertainty of having food in their next meal, or keeping the roof above their heads.  With schools closing at all levels, working parents got extra work – helping their children with school works. Certain aspects of life stood still. No travels, no dining out, no parties, no bars. Loved ones died alone, and were buried with neither the traditional rituals nor requiem.  So sad and depressing, these sordid states of affairs have immensely taken a tool on people’s (including children’s) mental health.

Our school’s spring break in March was ending, and as I was reluctantly conditioning myself back to work when the announcement extending the break to another week came. I was extremely delighted to hear about getting another week long break! Little did I know that it marked the beginning of the big catastrophe looming, threatening humanity for the rest of the year, with no end in sight until now.

However, in an unprecedented manner, vaccines against the SARS Cov-2  virus are beginning to be administered. This is a significant development in the multifaceted efforts to beat the deadly virus, and it provides a sliver of hope in the still long and arduous on-going fight against the disease.

Definitely, the year 2020 will be well remembered with the occurrence of this pandemia,  and will go down in the books as another deadliest one!

Meanwhile, life must continue to be lived on. And as we  bid adieu to 2020, let us rejoice and celebrate life as we welcome, with high hopes and great optimism, the new  year 2021.

Happy new year to all! 

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