What a Time To Be Alive

I have a few thoughts regarding this current pandemic and I wanted to get them on a page for myself so I can one day come back to it and see how I feel when this is all over.

I have feelings regarding the quarantine situation, the responses we’ve been seeing around the world, and some other miscellaneous thoughts that I’m going to throw together here. It’s going to be a little long and I hope you stick it through with me.

On Quarantine

I have been very clear with many of my friends that this is awesome. When I was a kid, I’d dream of having days where I could waste it away watching cartoons, playing video games, and eating delicious home-made food. In that sense, I have been enjoying my time at home a lot.

I don’t think I am an extrovert, but I am well-adjusted enough that I can appreciate a fun time out of the house. I do crave it sometimes, but I’ve also completed New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe, which totally justifies not seeing friends (Right? Idk.) I’m excited to see what the next game I settle on will be.

But there’s an even bigger reason why I’ve been so happy to be locked up in my house: Pause on life. God, how much I’ve needed this. I work at a company that is a minimum of 35 minutes away from my current home in Abu Dhabi and is easily 20 minutes removed from the nearest town. It is remote. And it really takes a toll on my well-being. So my days had me wake up at around 7 (If I could), showering, getting dressed, and mindlessly driving out of the city, looking at nothing but flat desert, to make it to work. Doing that every single day, leaving at 5, and having to drive 35 minutes to get home? It took its toll on me. Hard.

In the spirit of maintaining my body to not have my now modest dad-belly balloon beyond repair, I’m also supposed to work out. I enjoy swimming and the nearest pool that I like is over 45 minutes away from where I work. So I typically didn’t even go home; I went to the pool. The whole process of undressing, getting in the water, swimming for 90 minutes, showering, and getting dressed again to leave was both tiring and therapeutic but by the time I was done, it was anywhere between 8 and 9 PM. Sometimes, I’d even get in the sauna just for kicks. The day is now gone.

Coupled with all the pressures of family and other aspects of my changing life, like the once-looming wedding and marriage preparations, as well as some really hectic days at work where I’d finish at 10 PM sometimes, and you can see how working from home has been a dream for me.

I’ve now only been eating healthy food (my mom’s) and I’ve been working from the comfort of my couch. And it still amazes me that I have been able to keep up with everything from this couch. It really put so many things into perspective and I’ve had the time to think about if all that running around was actually worth it.

The thing is, I’d still ideally like to keep some of that old routine but I just wish it didn’t take so much time and didn’t wear me down so much. I really like my job. This quarantine has been the break I needed to be able to want to go back to that old routine with some enthusiasm. I also hope this quarantine will open the company up to allow a few days of working from home every month. It’s clearly doable and would boost my morale.

I guess the only thing I miss while in quarantine is the “what could have been.” But in my mind, there will always be more. And also, now with everything on pause, I realize what I really miss: Date nights, family nights (with the extended family), and Wednesdays with the friends. It’s all about the people. Other than that, almost everything else is just a bonus.

Responses to COVID-19

To be perfectly candid, I’m not going to discuss everything I feel. That would be too much. But I will point out a few things I wish would have happened and a few things I have been disgusted with.

First, the UAE.

So I think our curfew thing is a great idea. Keep the people home, discourage them from going out, and lock them up at night while also trying to keep essential jobs going. I do not doubt at all that any decision like this is hard to make. No one alive today is old enough to even remember a pandemic, let alone know how to deal with one. So in that sense, any action at all is a good one.

However, I think an overreaction is better than an under-reaction. My fear is to have the situation spiral out of control and have our hospitals be overloaded with COVID-19 cases. The number of confirmed cases has already crossed the thousand, and with cases doubling every week or so, we should hit two thousand cases between Thursday and Saturday. This isn’t me being pessimistic, it’s me being realistic. This is all happening while we have the current curfew and travel restrictions in place.

With all this considered, I think we need a stricter response. Something that we will all feel as awful but that we will all appreciate in the long run. We need to get life back to normal… By completely halting it for two to three weeks.

I think the UAE is well set-up to deal with the outbreak with three key things right now. First, money. The UAE’s got money. Oil prices are going up again and I think that we can try to leverage that to fund a really harsh outbreak response period. This will include the funding for tests, treatment of patients, and logistics.

Second, logistics. I don’t think there currently is a shortage of people or places for where we could treat and hold the current number of confirmed cases. They could be put at privately held hospitals who volunteer their facilities and staff, labor camps with free rooms, and public hospitals across the country. As for volunteer staff, this would be a bit tricky but I am a proponent of using the National Service reserve force and military logistic equipment to help with the response. If it would all be too much then the local police forces would have to take on these tasks. I wouldn’t use the military for medical tasks unless they’re qualified. However, if the country was completely locked down, the National Service reserve or military personnel could be used for food delivery to people in need, transporting people in need, and other emergency logistical support as well as keeping the peace where necessary. They’d have to be tested for symptoms every time they are deployed and we’d have to be careful with how they behave, keeping masks on at all times, and what they touch as well as how often they clean themselves. It would be a massive undertaking but one, I think, that not many people would object to participating in. It would bring all of us together.

Finally, the situation. The UAE can stand to really benefit from its current situation. The cases have not yet crossed a couple thousand and locking the country down completely for two to three weeks would lead to completely isolating the disease and really tracking down and treating those last few cases that would be discovered in that time. A hotline would be set-up with very clear communication that testing and treatment would be completely, no-strings-attached, 100% free-of-charge. Anyone with even a tiny suspicion that they might have the virus can be tested, safely transported, treated, and expect to be discharged within, or shortly after, the two to three week lockdown period.

And then… Deliverance. Complete internal freedom for people to start living their lives again.

Now that that’s out of the way, I want to talk about the Americans.

I find it curious that, out of all the things that can be focused on, the government of the United States is thinking about… The economy. Really? Money? At a time like this?

I mean, if you just consider the facts, it begins to look disgusting. First of all, the government is handing out peanuts to the people and billions to companies in order to save them. In principle, it makes sense. A lot of Americans get salaries from these companies. They should stay afloat. Fine. But a lot of the people that will be getting peanuts are also going to lose their small business jobs. Those small businesses, like little coffee shops and barber shops, are not going to be able to stay afloat the way that big companies can. It’s just sad, man.

The other thing to consider is Italy, which is a real-world example of a country where things have gotten out of hand. As of this writing, Italy’s death rate (or mortality rate) is 12.25%. Twelve percent. To put it into context, if you can count 10 people you love, and one of you got the virus and spread it to everyone around you, one of you will die if all of you got the virus in a country where the hospitals are completely overloaded. That is insane. And the Americans are talking about the economy, bailouts, relief packages, and getting people back to work. How can anything be more valuable than people’s lives? How can anyone be asked to go to work and be willing to die to “give their children a chance at a thriving economy?” What are you even saying? The under-paid millennials living in an over-inflated world do not want to inherit your debt and broken system. They want you to be safe and alive. This is just ridiculous. And all of this applies to the other irresponsible countries that are predominantly Western, for some reason.

You would think that with everything we’ve seen so far, and with the success that China has seen, that the whole world would be locked down for a few weeks, but no: The economy is the god we must all serve at a time like this. Obviously.

Phew. Okay, done.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

1. I miss Zuma

2. Saving money is awesome

3. There are much more and much better shows on OSN than there are on Netflix. And they have a streaming app that works.

4. My dad can’t sit still and is having a hard time adjusting to this

5. I’ve argued with my siblings three times so far

6. My brother and I are rocking mustaches

7. My sister does not like distance learning and can’t deal with not being in control of her life

8. My mom has so far made kebbeh with laban, mlukheyye, koosa mehshe, and roasted lamb. We’ve been happy with the food output.

9. My sister is getting better at baking. She tried making ice cream but didn’t have enough condensed milk. It tasted good but the texture was wanting. I crumbled the Oreos.

10. My brother thinks I’m writing an email right now.

11. I’ve watched The Hunger Games Trilogy, Life of Pi, Lion, and the first few episodes of DuckTales. I plan on starting a Harry Potter marathon soon.

12. The weather gets surprisingly pleasant in the evening for this time of year. I’m curious to know if it’s because all the cars stop being on the road and emitting greenhouses gases.

13. I miss Japan

If you made it this far, thank you. You know me that much more now.
Hope you’re all well,
Ahmed Al Shaer
04/04/2020