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How Connectivity is Helping Malaysians Live Normal Lives in Today’s Endemic

How Connectivity is Helping Malaysians Live Normal Lives in Today’s Endemic

The turn of 2020 saw the world plunge into an abyss never before experienced. Life as everyone knew it turned on its head, and it was expected that it would take several months before anything close to normalcy returned. However, that hasn’t quite happened.

What Malaysians are witnessing, instead, is a radical change to how we live life on a daily basis. This has pushed businesses and other services to adapt to this new reality. Connectivity is what holds the lives of Malaysians and their relations together.

Let’s take a look at how connectivity is helping stitch together a new paradigm for Malaysian society at large.

The Role of Flexibility

Before the pandemic, the thought of working from home, or telecommuting, seemed like a preserve of the lucky few. Using video call services such as Skype was an occasional thing unless the workplace had incorporated it into its daily usage. Now, things are different.

The pandemic forced employers to be flexible, or break under the sheer weight of not being able to conduct business, and have employees handle the necessary work. Given the various health edicts, it had become difficult to run a functional physical office as before.

Businesses had to give in and approve work that could be done from home to be conducted via the various video call and online collaboration applications that have since taken over the workplace. For those that absolutely had to have certain employees at work, they needed to make various concessions to keep work flowing.

Perhaps, the most important reason why Malaysia was able to come out of this pandemic in a much better position in comparison to other situations, is the fact that everyone was willing to be flexible.

As Malaysia learns to live with Covid-19, it will involve both personal and institutional flexibility to steer the nation to discovering workable solutions, and sticking to them.

The Role of MySejahtera

The Role of MySejahtera

The thing with respiratory diseases is, as soon as one comes into close contact with an infected person, there is a high likelihood that this new individual becomes a new carrier for the infection. This is exactly how the Covid-19 pandemic spread throughout the country to begin with.

Something had to be done to contain the spread of the virus. The Movement Control Order that the Prime Minister ordered was one such move that had a great impact on reducing infection cases. However, for those who had already been in contact with infected people and didn’t know it, a different course of action had to be taken.

Contact tracing. This was an excellent tool in controlling the spread of communicable diseases for more than a century. In a country that sees itself as a heavyweight in the technology services sector, it wasn’t long before a workable solution became available to assist with contact tracing.

Thus, various arms and agencies of the government came together to develop the MySejahtera app. The goal of this application was quick identification of people who had been in contact with anyone who had so far tested positive for the disease.

Today, the app is responsible for more than 10,000 positively identified cases of people who have come into contact with an infected person. On top of this, the various Standard Operating Procedures adopted meant the government and related health services had an easier time isolating and notifying exposed persons.

Such quick dissemination of information implied that businesses could now adapt their workforce needs on the fly, while permitting visitors to take preventative measures much faster.

The Role of Vaccinated Travel Lane

The Role of Vaccinated Travel Lane

The problem with an airborne pandemic is the disruption it causes to one of the oldest human activities; migration. Moving around to different lands for economic, commercial or educational opportunities has always been the norm. Well, until Covid-19 put a hard stop to such plans.

If there is one sector in the world that was brutally affected, it was the movement of people. Travel is the reason the disease was able to cross borders easily. Stopping any further spread signified a disruption in the travel industry.

The various lockdown orders with only limited essential travel permitted, saw serious interference to business operations, students’ education, employees and many more important cadres to a functioning economy.

Restarting travel meant people had to undergo multiple expensive tests just to get from one airport to the next. That still wasn’t a guarantee for some passengers, though asymptomatic at the time of travel, couldn’t come into contact and spread the disease afterwards.

The widespread availability of the Covid-19 vaccine opened up travel again, though with some level of reduced restrictions. This is the entire purpose of the Vaccinated Travel Lane. It lets fully vaccinated travelers get into a new country without having to quarantine.

Currently, VTL in Malaysia is covered under air and road travel. However, there are still restrictions as to which countries you can travel to and from using the VTL exception.

The Role of Communication

While flexibility has played an outstanding part in getting Malaysia through this pandemic, the ultimate accolade goes to communication. The ability to send messages between concerned parties has seen everyone work together to brave and overcome one of the worst events in modern history.

With various government bodies collaborating with public and private sectors to share data and facilitate info sharing on a scale never before precedented, outbreaks can be monitored and stopped before they grow in severity. Individuals can breathe easier knowing that potential infections can be isolated and referred to medical professionals. All they need is a smartphone and an active connection.

Communication forms the core of this quick response that we have grown accustomed to. We at Allo believe in the necessity of keeping as many Malaysians hooked up to these essential services, and are constantly working to expand the nation’s connectivity, one city at a time. Get in touch with us to learn how we can help.