Spotting the good in the bad

I can’t believe that today is my 23rd day of quarantine. Brazil hasn’t gotten to the lockdown level yet, but many rules have been enforced. It’s funny to remember how São Paulo is known for its endless traffic, but now, I can drive our main highway, Marginal Pinheiros, in a breeze. It's very weird, and definitely an adjustment.

Now, I've been paying more attention to the news, more than ever, and it's impressive how every time President Jair Bolsonaro speaks, there are people shouting at him and hitting their pots and pans from their houses. I don’t need to have the TV on to know that he's speaking because of the amount of noise my condominium makes. This past Monday night, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, who currently leads Brazil’s Health Ministry, ordered that all 5th and 6th year medical-school-students are supposed to be at the hospitals working with the nurses and doctors. I'm glad that they’ve finally decided to do so, for it will be of tremendous help to have knowledgeable individuals taking care of our nation!

Another thought that has been on my mind ever since self-quarantine has started, is our economy, which unfortunately isn’t as strong as the American one. Our main news channel, Globo TV, has bombarded us with different arguments of whether we should continue our social distancing or if we should start a selective one – which would allow certain groups of people to go to work and be at an adequate/safe distance from each other. The thought that rushes through my mind is that if we don’t do anything, our economy will certainly collapse, there's no doubt about that. But as of now, the end of the tunnel is a blur, and it's hard to say what's to come. I'm very interested in seeing what will happen next, if Brazil’s peak will really happen on the month of May as Luiz Henrique Mandetta assumes (figure provided below), if by June the number of cases will actually decrease, and how my country will respond to this crisis. Currently, our self-quarantine has been extended to April 22nd, so now we are in a waiting game, and as every week passes, more questions should be answered.

Below, shows three types of curves, the smallest to largest being: if we do total social distancing, selective social distancing and no social distancing at all. We are currently at "Outono" (Fall), "Semana" (Week) 15 and those are the "Projected COVID-19 epidemic phases - for planning" Brazil has been given.

Figure found in UOL website, article titled, "COVID-19: Health Ministry projects that cases increase in the month of May."

This time teleworking has made me learn to work with ambiguity, more than I've ever imagined myself needing to. I’ve had to be a lot more independent, be at ease when given broad instructions and barely any feedback. But obviously under the circumstances we are in, it's completely understandable. I’ve been talking with my supervisors every other week, and not much has been going on at the Parliament, everything is very slow, but according to them, they feel a storm coming at any point – a feeling that I believe all of us have at this point, right? Ever since I’ve been doing home-office, I’ve been given weekly tasks instead of daily ones, and at the end of the week I email both my supervisors the work that I've accomplished. It has certainly been an adjustment, especially when I emailed them my first assignment and didn’t hear back for 3 days. I politely emailed asking if they received it, and they simply said that I had done a very interesting research. I was very confused, no further instructions? No feedback? Do they want me to continue doing what I was instructed to do 2 weeks ago? Yup, all those questions were twirling in my head. It was only when I sent another message, this time to my supervisor that is more connected to the technological world, and she told me that I was supposed to continue monitoring further developments of how COVID-19 has affected the homelessness population in Europe and the US. Well, at least now I know what to expect and will keep working on it until I am told otherwise.

Finally, these past weeks of research has allowed me read and find very interesting statistics and developments about the homelessness population around the world and corona virus, such as: The Guardian stated that “there is an estimate of 700,000 people on the streets or shelters each night in EU and UK. … 70% higher than a decade ago and the numbers are still increasing, except from Finland.” Nevertheless, in this time of crisis, it's rewarding to see the selflessness people bring out in them. The Salvation Army, for example, has been campaigning for the homeless population and asking questions to the Dutch public, like: How are they supposed to stay home if they don’t have one? According to NL Times, there are approximately 40,000 homeless people in the Netherlands (double than ten years ago), and their non-profit organizations have been helping around 15,000 and have been of great help. They’ve set up a quarantine facility in Rotterdam for the homeless that have contracted the virus, they’ve been tirelessly building 10,000 more homes for them, and have been building partnerships with parks, hotels and empty gymnasiums so they can temporarily stay there too.

In addition, CPH Post, stated how “a unanimous Parliament has agreed to expand the vaccination program for vulnerable groups. … The new vaccination package includes: a free vaccination against pneumococci for people over 65 and to vulnerable groups under 65, a free flu vaccination for health workers and vulnerable group, and a continuation of free whopping cough vaccinations for pregnant women.” I thought it was great to see that Denmark’s government separated 5.5 million Kroners for the homeless population and that it has already been distributed to 9 different organizations that work with this vulnerable population. There are also different organizations, such as the Christian one from Berlin, that has created a “donation fence” in a church at the city center of Hanau, Hesse. There, people can drop off bags of food, hygiene and clothes for the homeless (DW Made for Minds).

All of this to say, it certainly has been a difficult season, more for some than for others, but there's one thing that has been gratifying to see, the goodness of people.