Palawan, the COVID19 pandemic is forcing people across the globe to drastically change their ways of life. In most lockdowns and badly hit countries like China, Korea, the United States, and Italy, governments have since declared school and work outage similar to what we have in place in our area of Luzon. Outside Luzon, some Local Government Units (LGUs) have locked down their cities or municipalities to “flatten the curve of the spread”.
The global medical strategy to flatten the curve is meant to slow down the spread of the disease to allow hospitals to accommodate those critically in need of their services. It will also allow the governments to isolate areas and cases to put effective future control measures in place to buy health experts’ time… time to treat patients and discover medications to treat the sick faster and eventually discover a vaccine that can permanently keep COVID19 at bay.
With quarantines and lockdowns across the globe happening, what is the new way of life nowadays?
Personally I shifted most of the work and personal life at home but I don’t rule out going to my BPO office to help support skeletal staffing following guidelines provided by the national and local government.
At home, I set up a small space specific for work. Noise and distraction-free and well ventilated, I go about meeting my teams using social media apps and other tools relevant to offsite work. Since I support the United States as a telecom account service provider, I get to work at home when everyone else is asleep which helps to make work more conducive.
This is the expected norm for work in the next few weeks while we are in quarantine but some of you may have questions, especially the sports enthusiasts, like how we sport buffs keep in shape at home? I have been working the night shift for the past 20 years and home exercise has been some form of a norm for me during weekdays so I suggest turn in some music, or watch a good video or a replay of your favorite sporting event and move it!
I try to mirror a “boxer’s round” where I go 3 minutes straight stationary jog with some calisthenics and try to do a minimum of 10 sets of those. That cardio workout is enough to give you a good sweat. After that, you can do your regular strengthening work like squats, push-ups, sit-ups, crunches, etc. Cap everything by cooling down and stretching the muscles. That’s good enough for a total of 45-60 minutes a day. Enough to give you some good burn. A good workout for the working class like most of us.
For athletes bound at home, they may do the same thing with more repetitions and minutes. I’m sure their bodies are used to the heavy lifting and pounding while training. At least this option won’t keep you “rusty” when everything goes back to normal. If you have a personal gym, well you’re lucky! You will stay in peak athletic shape and all you need to worry about is getting to game shape which practice on the venue or on the court is necessary.
COVID19 has proven to be a dangerous opponent we all have to face and collectively defeat. Most of us may not necessarily be at the forefront battling this out but if we comply with the quarantine procedures with social distancing and proper hygiene, we are doing our part in keeping hospitals from decongesting giving health care experts the much-needed space to treat the ailing.
Working from home and staying home bound isn’t easy but we all need to make this sacrifice so we all emerge victorious and strong! We can do this!
(The writer is a senior leader in the Business Process Outsourcing industry managing Philippine countryside operations)
