We are in the 13th day of the nationwide lock down aka movement restriction order which commenced on 18th March 2020. By now the US have taken the lead in the total number of infections – recording 105,240 confirmed cases compared to China which has 86,498 confirmed cases todate. Infographic source: Statista
Will President Trump’s lack of faith in science screw-up the fight to contain further infection? Italy still has the highest number of deaths from COVID-19 at 9,134 deaths. Malaysia saw an increase in number of deaths to 35 deaths as at Sunday. We still have another 15 days to go and hope there will not be any more extension after the 14th April 2020.
Since the start of the lock down, everyone’s life have turned upside down and one had to make drastic changes to their daily routines. What are the important events you have missed? What are the routines that you are missing at the moment?
13 days gone and no longer we can go to office to work. Although working from home is not a new concept for me – I have worked from home during the project cutovers at wee hours – extended working from home can be very uncomfortable, unproductive and fattening (I wanted to munch something at the time).
There were other things that I was missing due to the lock down:-
1. Major Car Service
My car is due to a major service and I had planned to do a few things extra namely replace my soon-to-be-worn-out tires, do some balancing, brakes service but unfortunately this was scheduled on the week the start of the lock down announced. There is no doubt on the replacement – I intend to stick to the same excellent, durable Michelin XM2 tires.
But with the lock down, all service centres and tire shops are now closed – the earliest they can work on your car would be after the lockdown. So I have to wait for the lock down to end before get my car serviced.
My wife’s car also need to be serviced – one of the sensors is not working and needs to be replaced.
Related: Know Your Car Basics: Mistakes Between Alignment & Balancing
2. Driving Long Distance
I hate traffic jams but I love driving especially in the morning where the air is cold and the traffic is less. It was time to slam on the accelerator and push the car to hit speed beyond 90 km/h. I had always felt that driving the car at high speed, for a longer time such as driving up and down the national highway is “healthy” to the car.
It cleans up the carbon built-up in the engine & exhaust faster than when driving short distance & driving slow. Mind you that this is my personal opinion although real science may not agree with me.
Related: Know Your Car Basics: 4 Things I Learned On Car Maintenance
3. Weekend Dining & Hawker Food
Weekend is the time to give a break to my HEO (house executive officer) from the house kitchen.
We often start the weekend by either packing up nasi lemak from our favourite makcik nasi lemak stall or having large plate of wanton noodles for breakfast. For lunch, the obvious choice would be the mixed rice shop that has plenty of vegetable dishes and just 10 minutes drive from home. And for dinner can be fast food takeaway like pizzas.
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When there is time and need, we may also drop by the night market for more of the finger food, fish & vegetables and clothes. However with the current lock down, this only means more cooking at home even on the weekends – considering that there is a high chance of cross infection going out for take away.
It was the same fear with the delivery service, more so with a Whatsapp video flying around of a food delivery staff lying unconsciously on the floor with the caption that it is due to Covid-19. Of course, this has been denied by the food delivery company and yet we have our reservations.
Besides we still had plenty of sundry stocked up in our doomsday storeroom which we wanted to use before it expires. We just need to top-up on the perishables once a week.
Related: Prepping in Malaysia 2020: Readying for Flu Pandemic
4. Visit to the Mall
Weekends is also time for us to get things done – from shopping for household sundry to kids’ stationeries & revision books. To avoid the crowd and also to get the best parking spot, we often go to the mall right before 10 am so that the parking lots are still empty and the shops just started to open.
We often catch breakfast at the nearest mamak restaurant, then have long walk around the mall and do the shopping before a late lunch at the mall before calling it a day and return home.
Going to the mall is also healthy – I have easily clocked 10,000 steps here as we are always on the move for shopping or to kill time between shopping & lunch.
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5. Blood Donation
The first week of April supposes to be my quarterly blood donation day – I was committed to keep the donation schedule without any cancellations. This is because now the hospital only opens blood donation facilities on the first Saturday of the months for weekends.
Unfortunately with the lock down and the number of infections reported, it is only prudent to wait for the lock down to end and the number of infections to be brought under control. Further I think it is best for the medical staff to more focus on the more critical cases and assist their front liners.
Related: 14 June: Support World Blood Donor Day
6. Visiting Other Family Members
One of the causes of the surge in number of infections in Italy was due to Italians from the infected areas going back to their home towns where the infections yet to start. The same concern was raised in Malaysia when the lock down was first announced and thousands of people from the big cities wanted to return home to their home town.
We had initially planned for a family trip to North, taking advantage of the school holidays. But as I was tied with some work from office, we scaled down to visiting my brother in law in KL. In between, there was some idea to visit my mum for a small gathering. Now this is cancelled due to the stay at home order but thanks to technology, we are still able to keep ourselves in touch and share any information critical on the coronavirus.
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Then of course there are other things I have missed in light of the lock down like visiting some premises for “investments” but then again, there are also things that I could do now consider I have the extra time now. One of the things that I looked forward during the lock down is to catch up on my sleep. I also finally managed to clean up my “doomsday” storeroom – took out some of the items that had lapsed and clean up the dust.
Rearranging the storeroom also means I now had more space to store grocery items. There is also more time for reading and watching documentaries, movies and concerts on TV & internet. There is time to work on my blog posts as well – especially those I have started to draft as future posts (so I wish). And there is a guitar lying in my son’s room, collecting dust – it is indeed a ripe time for me to pick this and start practising my strums and chords.
What you miss the most during this lock down? Please share and tell us why.