Too much has been written about COVID-19 and the pandemic. Daily, we are bombarded with stats on infections that steadily increase in number not just from actual news sources but also from our various group chats and social media platforms. Most times we just want to shut it all out.

To those whose lives are seemingly unaffected, it all becomes background noise. I’ve been living in relative peace and quiet in Leyte for the past six months. New cases rarely go beyond five a day — positives are usually travellers entering the city. Thankfully, there is no community transmission where I am based. There has been no death in one full month. These hopeful numbers weirdly fuel the fire for people thinking the pandemic is a hoax. All made up, untrue, fake news.

Unfortunately, people think that the safety measures our mayor has strictly upheld since day one are his ways of controlling us, so he “stays in power.” It takes an outsider like me to appreciate how much effort the local government has done so our city is safe from this dreaded infection.

In this cocooned city, people don’t believe the virus is truly wrecking lives. As an outsider, I’m all too aware of its destructive nature. Shipwrecked for much of the year in our own home in Quezon City, my family and I have been dealt constantly with news of friends and family succumbing to this wrathful infection and not being able to do anything about it.

Until late last year, it seemed like young adults were invincible to the virus. We go about our daily lives, grocery shopping, working, as if we have fully adjusted to this infection. As if we all have the immunity to combat it. The few young-ish casualties seemed to us the exception, until we find out someone from our own circle has died.

In medical school I had the privilege of knowing Dr. Ken Puzon. For someone who is slow to warm up to people, he readily put me at ease the first time we met. He is the kind of guy you want in your life: someone who enjoys life, but also knows when to get down to serious business. He was such a social person, he was probably part of all the school orgs. He got along with everybody: the partygoers, the slackers, the nerds, the quiet ones. You never felt left out with Ken, even if you didn’t know anybody else in the group.

As it happens, we all got busier with work and lost touch. People promise to at least go to reunions to catch up, but more often, we don’t even make time for that. Usually, classmates are brought up in group chats for good news: promotions, weddings, birth announcements. We never want it to be about illness.

Monday afternoon our batch found out Ken was confined because of COVID. Not even a few hours later, his doctors, our classmates, grievingly announced that he had passed. His Facebook wall has since been filled with messages from people whose lives he touched. So many pictures posted, so many tributes, but none of them can truly cover the big hole Ken’s death has left behind.

If you and your family are vaccinated, try to hold on to each other. Never miss a chance to let others know how you feel about them. Don’t let these moments slip by because we’ll never get them back.