Outbreak Measures

Malaysia has begun a 2-week movement restriction period throughout the country because of the Covid-19 outbreak.

All teaching and university work has been suspended though the team kept in contact all day via Telegram. I spent the entire day with Ain and Irfan at home. I do have tasks to complete, knowledge to learn at home, which means I am back to my freelance illustrator work mode. It is just like when I was back in the city, except that I would not be drawing.

Of course today of all days my Lazada order arrived from China: six sets of polyhedral dice. When it arrived, I immediately took it to the bathroom and dunked everything in a bucket of soapy water. Hours later, after they had dried, I split the dice with Irfan.

Lockdown dice

Ultimately, we never even unlocked the gate until night fell when we needed to take the garbage out. I unlocked the gate, Irfan disposed of the trash, and then I locked it right back. Also we saw two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The Last Outpost” and “Second Chances”.

The media implored us to stay home to reduce the effects of the outbreak, so that is what we are going to do. Although we invited Atok and Opah to travel here immediately yesterday, they declined and told us they would be fine back in Sitiawan.

Finally, because of the restriction movement and the shut down of schools and a huge sector of commerce, the media reported that many had chosen to balik kampung. If this is true then I fear because of secondary and tertiary infections in the next couple of days, two weeks of this low-scale lock-down would not be enough for the country.

Irfan asked if the country has ever experiences something like this before. No, sadly. This is something absolutely new to all of us.