After months of hemming and hewing, holding back the tide, and delaying the inevitable, the Visayan DAILY STAR will have to cease operations at the end of this week as we try to find a solution to the existential threats that we stubbornly thought we could outlast.

The country’s public school system is scheduled to reopen in a couple of days and based on the silence surrounding this issue, it looks like, despite the delay, neither national nor local governments are ready for schools to open.

If there’s anything good that came from living in a country where the one and only strategy against the coronavirus is to basically rotate through different quarantine statuses while waiting for a vaccine, many of us have been forced to rethink our lifestyles and priorities over the past six months as we endured the world’s strictest and longest lockdown.

It’s been six months since our country embarked on a response to the coronavirus pandemic. During that time, numerous countries have implemented successful strategies to suppress the spread of COVID-19, allowing their economies to recover and “normal” life to continue.

One show that has been trending on Netflix in recent weeks and is worth a look is the documentary “The Social Dilemma” by Jeff Orlowski. The 1.5 hour documentary attempts to discuss the frightening impact of social media and its algorithms on our world, illustrating the damage being done to our society by social media giants such as Facebook, Google and Twitter.

Congratulations!

The COVID-19 roulette of luck has given Bacolod City MECQ status until September 30 and if everything goes well, changing what was a “G” to an “E” will be enough to slow down the surge of coronavirus cases in our communities. However, if the status quo prevails and there is no difference in the way the people responsible approach the issue, then, at least, we will have seen that our government has done something. When they put our city under MECQ, even if we do not know what that actually means in the long run, that should count as something.

As we all strive to reduce contact with the outside world to protect ourselves and our families from the omnipresent threat of the coronavirus, delivery staff have become one of the many unsung heroes during this pandemic lifestyle.

Checkpoints are up again all over the place, especially in Bacolod City that has been forced to reinstate the Home Quarantine Pass solution once more in a desperate bid to do something about the surge of coronavirus disease 2019 cases.

We have been doing a lot of things from home since March and over the past six months or so, we have experienced firsthand how working, and eventually, schooling from home has changed the way we live.