In an instant, the pandemic changed everyone’s lives.
There were forced isolations and quarantines, border restrictions, separated families, infected friends and relatives. Mothers and children of single-parent families faced difficulties.
Disabled and elderly people were afflicted with their chronic illnesses. There were dismissals of workers and an increase in unemployment, with workers having forced vacations and others subject to reduced wages, having years and years of unpaid overtime. There was also a vertiginous rise in the main goods
essentials, cost of life and suicides.
Young people between the ages of 13 and 25 are the most affected in terms of mental health. School entities should be more tolerant towards adolescents who are suffering, trying to develop and find more pragmatic solutions to help them deal with their emotions and other difficulties.
As for the future of the Macao SAR, especially the future of young people, there are so many variables at play that any prediction at the outset will always be frustrating.
Habits have changed, especially social ones.
Restricted or almost no travel abroad, greater distance, less handshakes, more precautions with soap, alcohol gel, among others.
At the end of the day, it is the poor who suffer the most in this closed society, marked by ostentation goods where people compete with each other for wealth and the social status quo.
Behavioral and social changes are already being felt and have come to stay with education and some online work, an exponential increase in consumers who have started to buy almost everything much more conveniently and cheaper in digital commerce, with companies having to reconfigure their business models to keep up with this trend of new consumerism, which has repercussions on unemployment.
Immersive cultural experiences as a response to social isolation leads artists and cultural producers to bet on online shows, as well as virtual visits to museums, which are gaining more and more prominence.
However, the most important thing is solidarity and cooperation to help those who need it most, finding solutions to solve their problems.
On many occasions, President Xi Jinping has stressed the need to always give priority to the interests and lives of citizens and that solidarity and cooperation are the most powerful weapons to fight the pandemic.
We must make every effort so that, soon, people’s lives can return to normality, facilitating internal or external travel,
irrespective of the type of documentation and nationality.
It will be necessary to rapidly increase the number of visitors so that small and medium-sized companies can survive, reduce the mandatory quarantine to seven days to facilitate family reunion and increase the validity of nucleic acid tests to 14 days to help those who have daily to cross the borders of adjacent regions.
*Association of Public Service Workers of Macau
