The proverb is “Nanakorobi, yaoki” which means “fall down seven times, stand up eight.

” It means choosing
never to give up hope, and always striving for more. One week turned to 8 months and still counting. Imagine waking
up early in the morning to go to work, to school. Imagine catching up your ride or just sprinting to class just so you
won’t be late. Imagine doing our daily normal lives 8 months ago. Imagine none of the all the things happening now.
What do you think would it be like? Stressing? Tiresome? Those things we were stressing and complaining about,
those are the things we want the most now. Going out, being with friends, doing group projects, as student nurses, we
would be doing our first activity outside of the four corners of our classrooms and long cold hallways of our school.
Now, we’re in the comfort of our homes. Sitting in front of our phones, laptops, or desktops attending our online classes,
doing our online activities. What happened to those times we wished we could stay in our homes and enjoy life as it
is? I’ve had more than enough of being comfortable inside of my room. Are you? And…don’t we all?
As medical practitioners, we understand the weight of the situation our country is facing right now. It all started
with us wearing our masks, now face shields and distance. This wasn’t what we were expecting. As months pass by,
the statistics of those who are infected and died are increasing. But why? The Department of Health released
information to prevent the spread of the disease – of the coronavirus. We were reminded of the proper handwashing
technique and other preventive measures. They were all around – the news, the advertisements on televisions, radio
channels, and the internet – on our social media platforms. But the numbers kept increasing as if we’re racing with the
other countries on who gets to be on the top of the list. We don’t want that.
So, what are we going to do about this? Sit and wait for the vaccine to magically popped out of somewhere
and live the “new normal”? No. There are other ways to say “bye-bye” to COVID-19. Even though we’re stuck in our
homes, as medical practitioners and part of the youth, we have a lot we can do to help and raise awareness and
information about health and the coronavirus. Use of technology have been our strength as far as we first touched our
gadgets and signed up for different social platforms. We are social media advocates and information travel fast as
gossips pass between neighbors. Our role is to educate those who lacks or are knowledge deficits about the pandemic
- Education as a vaccine. Inoculate is defined as the act of treating with a vaccine to produce immunity against a
disease. We should inoculate. Sharing our wisdom to our fellow countrymen about what we know would reduce the
number of people contaminated.
In spreading information, another thing we can do is to give justifications to what we provide the public. Many
fake news have spread out during the quarantine and misinformed the people in what to do to wash out the virus in
our bodies. It caused most of our countrymen to panic and do all sorts of things just to prevent the disease. “This
pandemic reveals the existing inequalities in society,” Sujitha said – one of the UK’S National Health Service (NHS).
“Protecting the most vulnerable should be a priority at all times, not just during a pandemic.” Including in the increase
of infected people are the numbers of medical practitioners that have also been contaminated because of their
deteriorating health and sacrifices to cure their patients. Jama Jack, Head of Communications of the Medical Research
Council Unit for the only COVID-19 testing center in The Gambia in West Africa said, “Solidarity will provide an
opportunity for the sharing of correct information, and this can help to minimize the potential for panic.” If we only help
each other and think about those people who have sacrificed their lives in order to find the cure, we wouldn’t be in this
position. As much as we could, disasters happen and just recently, Catanduanes has been barged in by the Typhoon
Rolly. Countless are affected and more and more people are going through poverty because of this. In this times when
essentials are scarce, we should offer help and give as much as we receive to those communities. It is our priority not
just to spread information but also provide care especially in this time of pandemic. No one should be left be behind.
Perhaps our number one problem today is COVID. It really is. And we should take action, not just words. We are
promoters of health and lives. People around us will give up and succumb to problems but we should never surrender
to it.