Sleepless nights, troubled days, wiped-out savings illustrate the situation of many middle class families as COVID invades thousands of homes since the sudden surge of cases last month. Unlike last year when I only saw COVID in news reports, I am now grappling with private messages in my facebook and viber accounts. Friends in quarantine need to talk to people.
The 46 friends who are in my prayer list now are from 18 families. COVID infected more than one member in their immediate family. How? Most of the transmission were through small gatherings like Sunday family lunch.
Most of them were asymptomatic so nobody knew that they were COVID carriers. But it turned out that some of them got infected at work without knowing it. Almost all of them report to their offices at least three times a week, 8-10 hours per day.
COVID up close
Middle class professionals strive hard to save a portion of their monthly income for emergency fund. Usually, an emergency fund for a middle class supervisor or manager is worth three months salary. This fund is easily gone when COVID hits the household.
Jenny’s experience illustrates the havoc that COVID has done to her family.
On the 75th birthday of her mom last month, Jenny and her two siblings with their own families went home to Pampanga to surprise her mom. All 15 of them had a grand time during the weekend celebration.
But in a span of one week, 10 of the 15 tested positive for COVID. Just four days from that fateful weekend, two elders were confined in the ICU due to severe pneumonia from COVID. On the 8th day from her birthday celebration, Jenny’s mother passed away due to pulmonary arrest.
The emotional trauma will forever haunt Lina and her brood. But aside from this, it will also take time to recover financially from all the COVID-related expenses.
RT-PCR test is given free by local government units. But there is a long line and Jenny’s family were very worried so, they decided to pay for the test. At Php 4,500 per swab test, they spent Php 67,500 alone for the RT-PCR tests of 15 family members.
Financial trauma
PhilHealth pays for COVID hospitalization depending on the severity of the case. But based on the experience of my friends, they paid more.
Based on estimates in a private hospital in Manila, a moderate COVID case for one week in a regular room is around Php 500,000. But PhilHealth’s package for moderate pneumonia for levels 1-3 hospitals is only Php 143,267. That means, one has to shell out some Php 350,000.
The maximum PhilHealth COVID package is Php 786,384 for critical pneumonia patients admitted in levels 2-3 hospitals. But based on experience of a friend, this is not enough.
My friend who was a severe case was confined in an ICU of a private hospital for more than a week. The ICU confinement was around Php 120,000 to Php 150,000 per day or about Php 1.35 million for 9 days in ICU. For this confinement alone, he had to pay an additional Php 563,616 payout. When he got out of the ICU, he had to stay for 7 more days in a regular room. I did some estimates and I think my friend probably paid about P850,000 from his own pocket.
Emotional Trauma
More than the financial trauma is the long-term emotional damage that COVID leaves in a family. The loss of a loved one to this deadly disease haunts a family forever.
Middle class families are usually tight-knit. We usually live near or with our parents. Since most are employed professionals, the risk to be infected with COVID is high given that many leave the house to work. Being absent from work is also not an option because we rely on our monthly salary to support the family.
So, when the new highly-infectious COVID variants hit the country, our families were also the first in line to be affected. A sad, sorry state that we cannot escape from until this pandemic is over. How many more of our family members will suffer until we are inoculated with the vaccine that will cause herd immunity?
