The last flight I took before the World Health Organization’s declaration of the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic on March 11, 2020 was on March 9. This was a week before President Duterte placed Metro Manila, followed by Luzon, under enhanced community quarantine or total lockdown. On March 9, 2020, the Department of Health recorded 10 new confirmed COVID cases, bringing the total to 20. Still, the threat was there; the WHO had declared the COVID outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern” as early as Jan. 30. As the gobbledygook failed to bring home the gravity of the situat…