The situation of the outbreak in Malaysia as at 13th July 2020 is firmly under the control and yet we must continue our vigilant and keep the number of cases under close monitoring. Graph source: Stat News
The man who flew 9,600km from Athens to Malaysia just to eat nasi lemak is back with a moving video thanking Malaysia for taking care of him during the lockdown in March. The facts that he mentioned is nothing new to Malaysians as whole but it does give us another perspective considering how well we have done todate on the outbreak.
The point that he made at the end of the video nails the reason why Malaysia did not come out worse from this outbreak.
It is very fortunate that despite the political uncertainties, we had the best and very brilliant people running the Ministry of Health during this outbreak. It is also good that most of the politicians in this country did not make a fool of themselves by asking the opposite and screwing things up. These politicians actually listened to experts (yup, no one here suggested the doctors inject patients with bleach) and worked together (both ruling and oppositions) to formulate & enforce in the necessary control measures on the outbreak.
Malaysians themselves remain committed (despite the considerable strains on the livelihood), put a high priority on the safety of others and listened to the health authorities in order to contain the spread of the virus. And how much difference that made on how fast we were able to contain the outbreak of the virus. The recovery rate of 97.65% is not a small feat to achieve considering the number of COVID19 cases we have.
Look status of the outbreak in other countries such as the US who have achieved only 44.45% recovery rate and they still have almost 1.8 million active cases. The number of the population does make a big difference in the numbers during this outbreak but unfortunately, it is clear that the graph is NOT flattening at all in June onwards and things seem to be getting worse. Graph source: Stat News
Obviously it is because there are 2 other pandemics on the loose – one is called stupidity and another is ignorance. One classic case would be this:-
A 30-year-old man who believed the coronavirus was a hoax and attended a “Covid party” died after being infected with the virus, according to a Texas hospital.
The man had attended a gathering with an infected person to test whether the coronavirus was real, said Dr. Jane Appleby, chief medical officer at Methodist Hospital in San Antonio, where the man died.
She did not say when the party took place, how many people attended or how long after the event was the man hospitalized with Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The man was not publicly identified.
The premise of such parties is to test whether the virus really exists or to intentionally expose people to the coronavirus in an attempt to gain immunity.
(Source)
I hope this guy makes it to the finals of the Darwin Awards for 2020 as his story is simply amazing. Unfortunately, he won’t be around to collect the award obviously.
Just wonder how many such cases of stupidity not reported in the mainstream media, not only in the US but also around the world. We are no longer living in a world where information takes days or months to reach us. We have information at our fingertips and our brains have evolved over millions of years to be able to decipher this information and make the right decision.
Anyway, thank you Malaysia and well done!
Please remain vigilant, be informed of the facts, maintain social distancing and always wash your hands & wear the facial mask until it is truly safe to be back to the old normal.