Life with Rona – Day 11

Woke up in time to do an Isabel & Marcus workout. Enjoyed it thoroughly. Read a bit. And will keep today short as I’m going to watch Ozark Season 3 — been a while since I used my Netflix account. I notice Better Call Saul is back too. Pity Ray Donovan is missing from the lineup. Today is the one day of rest I’ll take before working again tomorrow (who cares if it is a Sunday?).

Malaysia’s situation is interesting. We are going to test a lot more for COVID-19. 100,000 kits came in from China, 200,000 from South Korea. Rapid testing should be great. But worryingly, they’ve got the equivalent of an NHS Nightingale Hospital at The ExCel Centre; it is at the Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang (MAEPS). 600 beds, and they are worried about a spike mid-April (read for stats: Health Ministry: Serdang exposition centre set up as makeshift hospital in preparation for worst-case scenario). Does this mean the MCO will get extended?

World over, we are seeing more borders close. Japan is being picky with the foreigners they let in (Singapore, Malaysia and most of South East Asia, now affected). We also see Tokyo sort of having their first day of a shutdown (First day of Tokyo shutdown to stem coronavirus spread begins). There are medical trials that the WHO is approving, and Malaysia is participating (primarily at the Sg. Buloh Hospital — and it is not limited to Remdesivir); Japan has their own with Avigan.

Just yesterday I said we have to prepare the Malaysian public to get information no matter what controls exist. It is beyond porn, obviously. Today we can see a chap tweet: “Welp, 2 news outlets have either pushed back my commentary on Pakej #PRIHATIN , or told me I couldn’t appear unless I was willing to talk it up positively only. Instructions from above. I said no to the latter because I’m an economist, not a shill.” I encourage sources to go direct, publish on WordPress or Medium because social media will ensure that at least a huge chunk of the population gets to read it. But again, maybe that’s only the “T20/M40”, we still have to disseminate information to the B40 (which is maybe why Claire Rewcastle-Brown’s Radio Free Sarawak was such a game changer).

More now than ever, I am realising I need to go out into the heartlands of Malaysia, and speak to my fellow brothers and sisters. I’m reminded of what I learned at Asia Source, and the other bits of stuff I did with TacticalTech. I’m also thinking how we can make everyone a “smarter Malaysian”. More informed.


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