Quarantine Diary : The World Today

Monday, 20 April 2020 

No body has ever expected that 2020 will be the year of virus pandemic that creates a great lockdown, uncertainty and anxiety almost everywhere. No single country is prepared from this catastrophic and no one can hide from this virus attack. We are living like in the zombie movie even much worse, we can't see our enemy and until today, we don’t have a special gun to eliminate them. 

Humankind is now facing a global crisis and perhaps the biggest crisis in our generation. This is just the beginning of the crisis, some companies predicted that they only able to run the business up until June 2020 if the condition is unchanged. 

Today, it’s not only coronavirus the world is struggling with, but also the Locust plague that threatening East Africa and has been migrating to east Arab and east Asia. A second wave of the desert locusts with estimates that it will be 20 times worse than the plague that descended two months ago. This locust present an extremely alarming and precedented treat to the food security and livelihoods. A swarm of just more than a third of squire mile can eat the same amount of food in one day as 35.000 people. The coronavirus lockdown has slowed efforts to fight the locust plague as crossing borders has become harder and pesticide deliveries are held up. And this insects also can travel about 90 miles a day and need not visa or human transmission to spread to other country. 

billion of locust swarm in Kenya village. picture from the guardian.com

The world welcome us in 2020 by giving thousand million miles forest fires, flood and hurricane in the beginning of January and continue with many natural disasters that humankind never expected will come in one time. 

History has recorded that humankind has experience great pandemic and around 50 million people died as a result of 1918 - 1919 H5N1 Spanish flu. We will never let it happened again this year. Yuval Noah said : “This storm will pass. But the choices we make now could change our lives for years to come”

3 months passed already and around 165.100 people died and another 55.000 people in critical condition worldwide caused by Covid-19 (data as per 20 April 2020). In this time of crisis, we face two particularly important choices. The first is total surveillance and citizen empowerment. The second is about national isolation and global solidarity. This been described by Noah in his article. see https://www.ft.com/content/19d90308-6858-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75. 

But how about personal choice or response to protect us and family from this crisis. There are three levels of response to the Covid-19 pandemic: how it effects us physically, economically, mental and spiritually. The physical response come first and by now everyone implement social distancing, testing and self-isolation, washing hand and no face touching. This basic response is most important to held up the virus spread even though they have big impact on social and economical response.

The second effect is economy. This is the most important response we should deal with. The total number of people in Indonesia who have filled for unemployment over the past three weeks reached nearly 2.8 million according to data from the Manpower Ministry. In addition, about 70 million informal workers were at risk as they had lost their incomes as a result of the call for social distancing. 

The first thing we should do is be assessing our overall budget. What are our expenses, and what are our income sources? For people who still have a job, the best thing to do is start saving right away. Ideally we should have somewhere between 6 to 12 months of emergency money on the side. Not money invested but literally cash savings. Managing your debt, if you have mortgage or loan, refinancing at a lower rate help you spend less on interest in the long term. 

The third is mental and spiritual effect of the outbreak. The best advice in the mental area for me is meditation and yoga, relaxation techniques and paying attention every day to finding not just relaxing but joy and comfort in your life. The virus makes the need for positive psychological response more urgent which is connected to a strong immune response. The last one is the spiritual effect, this is being neglected by several people, even though the presence of death caused by the virus awaken concern about state of our souls. What ever your religion is, we do believe that there is a creature of the universe.

As the Qur'an said. Said Moses to his people "Seek help through Allah and be patient. Indeed, the earth belongs to Allah and he causes to inherit it to whom He wills of His servants. And the best outcome is for the righteous"- QS. 7: 128.

and as the Bible said: "My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth" - Mazmur 121:1

You can improve the state of your soul in the following ways: Having the sense of meaning and purpose, Loving and being loved, Self-esteem, Being of service to others , Generosity of spirit.

We don’t need to apply the words “spiritual” or “religious” to these of healing, there are based on long traditions that have understood by the human condition. More to the point, they are practical. They give you a sense of control over your life. By bringing you closer to your God, soul, spirit, higher awareness or deeper self. Your soul is the most intimate part of you. 

At the last of my writing, we should do what should be done, we try to remain hopeful but we really don’t know.