It’s been 1.5 years (April 2020) till date since Singapore entered into Circuit Breaker (CB) due to the global pandemic Covid-19 situation wreaking havoc and chaos around the world. Our daily living and working life have changed drastically, livelihoods have been severely affected, our mental and emotional health and well-being took a heavy toll. As we are striving towards endemic situation, when can we see the light at the end of the tunnel?
We went from CB, to leaving CB, entering into phase 1, 2 and 3, before returning back to P2HA and P3HA. That was followed by the four stages re-opening road map moving towards a covid resilient nation, starting off with preparation stage, transition stage A, transition stage B and finally covid resilient nation.
Photography by Ryan Cheng
We are like rocking to and fro, swinging in and out. Where are we heading, why does it seem like 1 step forward and 2 steps backward? As we brace ourselves for the inevitable rise in local cases when we embark on the journey to cautiously and slowly open up. For many of us, we keep to the rules and regulations, playing our part. Yet we still return back to tightened measures and restrictions again when new measures and restrictions were announced on Friday 24th September evening, that would start on Monday 27th September till 24th October 2021.
I am running out of words to describe my frustrations and feelings. We are back to a heightened alert level yet we are not calling it a heightened alert. Small and medium sized businesses are still suffering from this ongoing pandemic situation while trying to survive and return back to some normalcy. Yet another round of those new measures and restrictions are going to have another round of financial, emotional and mental health impacts on us again.
When can we see light at the end of the tunnel? When can we see the end of this global pandemic situation? When can we move from pandemic to endemic? When can we get our life back to the pre-covid time even though it won’t be the same as before?
This ongoing journey battling the global pandemic over the past 1.5 years (and still counting) have made us mentally and emotionally very fatigued, not to mention the stress and pressure from the financial impacts of running a small business.
Sometimes we see the light at the end of the tunnel, sometimes it feels like it’s getting dim and flickering at times. Although it can be very discouraging and disappointing at times, we have to keep on moving and striving forward.
There are many a times, people can’t see, feel or even understand what I am going through, the amount of stress, pressure, emotional and mental fatigue, not just from the battling this ongoing global pandemic, there are also business operations and personal matters deep inside the heart, mind and soul that can’t be said openly and publicly.
Photography by Ryan Cheng
While I was in a much worse mental and emotional stage back in May and June 2021 as compared to this current point in time, I will continue to pick myself up and continue moving forward, one step at a time, towards the light at the end of the tunnel.