Covid Conundrum 1 - The beginning of a new norm

 Covid Conundrum 1 - The beginning of a new norm

2020 is a significant year for Malaysia. The prime minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohammad, who helmed the country in the 80s and 90s, set a grand vision for the country. In his Vision 2020, our country would be a fully developed and prosperous country. Malaysia would be a high income nation, with equal distribution of wealth an  the citizens living in harmony. It was a grand vision and there was even a song aired in all local media, programmed to galvanize the people to embrace the vision. And we embraced the vision.

We welcomed 2020 with a bang aboard the Norwegian Star bound for Uruguay. We had just passed a channel near Cape Horn and spent a day in the Falklands. As we prepared for the New Year's party, there was an air of excitement and anticipation of wonderful things to come for the coming new year. 

There was much singing and dancing and champagne flowed freely. As the countdown began, and balloons dropped, we wished each other "A Happy 2020" with much goodwill and cheers. Little did we imagine what 2020 was in store for the country and the world as we partied the night away.

On the final leg of our trip, when we reached Amsterdam, we began to hear of some rumours of a strange variant of flu emerging in Kuala Lumpur. Someone reported that many people in Kuala Lumpur were down with this new flu variant. We assured ourselves that since we have had our flu shots, we should be safe from this flu variant. 

By end of January 2020, more stories emerged on this new flu variant, it was not akin to SARS, nor anything near H1N1. People in China were getting very sick, and cases of people infected in the United States, in United Kingdom, Italy, and parts of Europe began to emerge. Oh, but it will soon blow away, just like SARS, we thought and we made plans for the next few months of travel. Scotland, Spain, Morocco, the Pyrenees.....

As more and more people in the world got infected, hysteria sets in and the blame game began. It was called the China virus, the Wuhan virus and the Chinese were demonised. The scientific community identified it as SARS-CoV-2. Then the World Health Organisation (WHO) announce that it was a pandemic and named the flu variant as Covid-19.  An atmosphere of fear and uncertainty gripped the world. One by one, countries began to close their borders.

Our government took steps to close the country's border and introduced 'Movement Control Order' or MCO. We we to remain indoors and not allowed to gather in groups. Only one person in the family was allowed to go out for any shopping. Religious and social gatherings were prohibited. There was a total shutdown of business activities, except for essential services. Roadblocks were set up to control the citizens' movements. As law-abiding citizens, people complied with the MCO. Thus began a new norm in the country.