Movement Control Order 3.0x

It’s 1st June, 2021. this is the third time that we have gone into a serious lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. All started in Mid March 2020, with the various levels of movement control order, lockdown seems to have been stretching for more than a year already. This story really makes a good post-doomsday biopic, where every day more than one busload of people dies. The prolonged movement control is taking a toll in my mental health, not to mention the physical health too.

I feel like I’ve had it. I think a lot of people feel that way too. In the past year, I have gone to office less than 14 times or less than 2 weeks in total. Work goes on, business as usual, just that my office is also my bedroom. What frustrates me is that for a huge section of society, lockdown means they get to take a break and yet still get paid. Just a day before lockdown, wife wanted to submit her internship paperwork with the education department. She was told that the accounting has closed for the day in preparation for lockdown, which means no approvals are happening during the lockdown.. which then begs the question what are these people doing at home then? Because of that, she is now going to miss her chance at internship and now scrambling to see what she can do to push out the internship when she already took her non-paid leave from work.

I am also working on a research project with a university, where the agreement needs to be signed between 4 parties. I have rushed my side, taking the agreement to Butterworth to be signed and courier it to KL, and subsequently courier back to Penang. The agreement now is in Johor, signed but no one can come into the office to proceed with the next step. So all is on hold because office work stops.

We have sacrificed for the safety and health of people around us. We did not have Chinese New Year, forsaken Cheng Beng and Wesak Day. Now news are saying that some 400,000 people crossed borders during the Raya Holidays and we see COVID-19 spread because of balik kampung. Because of these people, all of us are locked down. So whether we follow the rule or not, we are all in the same hole now, which I strongly feel is unfair where the good citizens are punished together with the violators.

As of today, I am frustrated. I feel victimized.

One thing that really helped today was when MRC State called up to ask for more names to be included in the volunteer vaccination program. I found a purpose again, setting up a form for people to submit the details. As for the university research project, I manged to get through a round of purchase using my own credit card to meet the deadline. Putting myself to work and getting busy, I feel I am doing something to beat the depression of lockdown. Feels like the solution to the new low is to find ways I can help, be of service and be of value.

Here in include the SOP for MCO3.0x