COVID-19 (Individual Assignment)

 INTRODUCTION

     The COVID-19 pandemic is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) which was caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) which the first case was identified from an outbreak in Wuhan in China in December 2019. The pandemic rapidly spread across the globe after attempts to contain it in China failed. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020 and a pandemic on 11 March 2020. As of 2 January 2022, the pandemic had caused more than 289 million cases and 5.44 million deaths which is one of the deadliest diseases in history.

      COVID-19 symptoms can be from none to deadly which is more likely in elderly patients and those with certain underlying medical conditions are more likely to have higher risk to get infected by this virus. COVID-19 is airborne which is mainly spread via contaminated air by microscopic viral particles. The risk of infection is highest among people in close proximity, but it also can occur over longer distances, particularly indoors with poor ventilation of the areas. Transmission rarely occurs via contaminated surfaces or fluids. Infected persons are typically contagious for 10 days where they are likely to begin with or without symptoms. Mutations produced many variants or mutations with varying degrees of infectivity and virulence.

      COVID-19 vaccines have been approved and widely distributed in various countries since December 2020, but it arrived in Malaysia in February 2021. The Government also recommends several precautions including social distancing, masking, improving ventilation and air filtration, and quarantining those who have been exposed or are symptomatic. Treatments include monoclonal antibodies and symptom control. Governments also do some initiatives including travel restrictions, lockdowns, business restrictions and closures, workplace hazard controls, quarantines, testing systems, and tracing contacts of the infected.

       The pandemic triggered severe social, medical, education and economic disruption around the world including Malaysia. Widespread supply shortages, including food shortages, were caused by supply chain disruption and panic buying. The resultant near-global lockdowns saw an unprecedented pollution decrease. Educational institutions and public areas were partially or fully closed in many jurisdictions, and many events were cancelled or postponed. Misinformation circulated through social media and mass media, and political tensions intensified. The pandemic raised issues of racial and geographic discrimination, health equity, and the balance between public health imperatives and individual rights which this also happen in Malaysia although sometimes we rarely get news about the matter.

       Following the sudden changes in the Malaysian society, this matter is also affected by the Malaysian government’s efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal among the community when the COVID-19 pandemic occurs where there are several sustainable development goals affected, among them, good health and well being (third Sustainable Development Goal), quality education (fourth Sustainable Development Goal), clean water and sanitation (sixth Sustainable Development Goal), affordable and clean energy (seventh Sustainable Development Goal), decent work and economic growth (The eighth Sustainable Development Goal) and responsible consumption and production (the twelfth Sustainable Development Goal) where these Sustainable Development Goals are very important for the development of the country.

EFFECT ON GOOD HEALTH AND WELL BEING GOAL

    One of the Sustainable Development Goals affected is the third sustainable development goal, which is good health and well-being was established to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. However, this goal was thwarted when the COVID-19 pandemic spread which not only affected the health of the population in Malaysia but also affected nearly 32,000 lives. As of 5 January 2022, the total number of COVID-19 cases reported was 3,270 cases making a cumulative total of 2,773,156 cases in Malaysia reported by the Ministry of Health of Malaysia. As we know, the pandemic is spread through air and fluids contaminated by the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes infected individuals to start getting symptoms such as fever, cough and flu, vomiting, tiredness and loss of appetite and smell, and in severe cases cause shortness of breath and the worst scenario cause death.     

 

     The thing that makes this pandemic very dangerous is that the virus that infects the patient does not disappear with the corpse and continues to spread to anyone who touches the infected corpse which makes the management of the corpse very difficult to control and requires careful management methods. In addition, symptoms of this disease also that only appear within 2 weeks after being infected makes it more difficult for the us to identify the disease in a short time and the worst scenario will happen if these patients have visited and have close contact with someone especially infants, the elderly, and individuals with the disease chronic which these categories is very easy to be effected.

    The death rate caused by this epidemic increased rapidly at the beginning of the spread of this pandemic in Malaysia and the situation became worse because of the lack of information and suitable treatment related to this new pandemic which made it difficult for the hospital to be the main place to treat many patients because mainly the hospital and clinic at that time were only able to treat the patient’s symptoms not the source of it which is the virus. This further complicates Malaysia’s goal to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal with a medical institution that lacks medical staff for health management because a lot of medical staff is not willing to take risks to manage these infected patients as well as lack of effective medical resources which adds to the community’s anxiety about this pandemic.

    The situation becomes worse when there are many people with a history of travel from abroad visiting crowded places and having close contact with others which causes dozens of people who had the close contact with them to be infected and needed to be rushed to hospital at once which further increases the number of infected patients per day. Therefore, the government instructed the Malaysian community to quarantine themselves and their families for a period in stages to reduce the rate of population infected with this pandemic. Many institutions were closed including business centres, educational centres and entertainment and recreation centres. This indirectly limits the activities of the community, especially the workers who were directed by their employers to start working in their homes for their safety.

    Initially, this did not have a significant impact on the community but, after several months of quarantine, there are many others’ problems and diseases that increase in addition to the increase in COVID-19 patients such as obesity, diabetes, heart attack, HIV and AIDS where mainly occurs due to limited conditions for recreation and exercise and an increase in sexual crimes against children during the quarantine. This quarantined situation is also not good for mental health as there is also an increase in individuals who suffer from depression or become victims of abuse due to stress that strikes while in quarantine.  

    This is clearly a threat to the establishment of the best medical institutions to realize the Sustainable Development Goal, therefore, the government began to take action to give flexibility to the community to continue their activities as usual, but they need to follow the SOPs directed to ensure public health while still limiting some institutions that are clearly able to spread this COVID-19 pandemic more severely such as tourist centres.

EFFECT ON QUALITY EDUCATION GOAL

   This COVID-19 pandemic also clearly affects quality education in Malaysia where this is the Sustainable Development Goal that was established to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. As we have discussed, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected many important institutions in the development of the country, especially educational institutions which are mainly school and university levels.

       Following the government’s directive to call on Malaysians to be quarantined in their homes, the government also ordered authorities to close schools and universities which are mainly to keep school and university students from exposing themselves in crowded places that could risk themselves to the COVID-19 pandemic in addition to making schools, especially schools with hostels as quarantine centres for COVID-19 patients because there are not enough places to place COVID-19 patients in hospitals where this also applies to large places such as indoor stadiums in the state of Terengganu as reported in the “Berita Harian” Newspaper on 24 August 2021.

  However, learning sessions for school and university students are still conducted online as teachers and lecturers are also instructed to work at home. However, the culture shock and unfamiliarity of students with online learning affects the performance of many students mainly because there is no learning atmosphere in their place of study as they easily lose focus when studying in front of versatile gadgets while there are also students who do not have a suitable place to study at their home mainly because the noisy atmosphere with their family causes them to also lose focus easily.  

    Many students who are less able to afford the purchase of gadgets such as laptops, smartphones, and Wi-Fi themselves implement this online learning in addition to difficulty to focus on their learning because of the state of their Wi-Fi line or internet data that is not clear, causing them to not understand a subject clearly. In addition, students also face difficulties to conduct a good discussion among them especially for those who are just entering school and university studies as they do not get enough opportunities to get to know their colleagues which causes many students to still feel shy to communicate and exchange opinions with their friends.

     This online learning is also forcing many parents, especially the elderly as well as their children to be savvy in technology to survive in this pandemic. This encourages many of their children, especially young children, to easily access the internet to see the things they are interested in without being monitored by their parents, causing their children to be easily influenced by outside influences that mainly expose children to a culture that destroys values. Their easy access to the web that have inappropriate virtues such pornography and things that waste their time not only cause their children to spend less time with their families but also their children do not get adequate moral education which is shows that quality education in Malaysia has been severely affected since the Covid-19 pandemic. 

    In addition, this online learning also has a great impact on the mental and physical health of students where many university students especially stated that they experience severe stress and depression during this quarantine period after being questioned by the university. Therefore, it is clear to us that the Covid-19 pandemic has a severe impact on the quality of education in educational institutions in Malaysia, especially at the school and university level.

EFFECT ON CLEAN WATER AND SANITATION

    If we look back at the facts related to this COVID-19 virus, it is found that the COVID-19 virus does not transmit through water while swimming. However, the water source must be kept clean to ensure clean water supply can be supplied to all Malaysians to practice the practice of always washing hands and body with soap cleanly and thoroughly because this practice is one of the important steps to slow down transmission virus to our body as the virus still can spreads between people when someone has close contact with an infected person.  

   This practice seems easy to practice because this practice is a normal routine for individuals in normal situation, but this practice becomes a very difficult practice for some people who are in states where water supply is often cut off such as in the state of Selangor which has a serious water supply crisis even before this COVID-19 pandemic season. This further complicates the recovery of this COVID-19 pandemic situation when people must transport water to their homes every day to get water for their daily needs which increases the risk of the population in the state being infected with COVID-19 virus with a high probability of society not following SOPs designated.

   Therefore, the supply of clean water for community sanitation becomes impossible if the authorities neglect their responsibility of supplying this source of clean water to the society. Even if we are not infected with COVID-19 virus, most likely the population is infected with a dangerous disease that can weaken our body’s immunity which provides a suitable medium for COVID-19 virus to infect us if there is close contact with infected people. Sanitization is also an important thing to do daily to kill germs and inactivate viruses which is an important practice for all individuals especially for those who need handling these COVID-19 related things like those who are frontlines.

    The Government also encourages the Malaysian community to always bring sanitizer and use it whenever they want to touch something outside, especially in crowded places such as supermarkets, in addition to instructing the authorities in every institution and sector to always sanitate the place to be used or after use by the people by using sprays containing alcohol -based sanitizers to kill germs and inactivate viruses including in open areas and often passed by people such as roads.  

    However, this matter became worse when the anxiety of some people who started buying in bundles of sanitizer caused people to have to buy sanitizer at a high price and looking for other initiatives to prevent themselves from touching something. This is quite inconvenient for the community because they have to deal with rising prices of essential goods which is very important for self-care from the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the Malaysian government can now overcome this problem by fining such irresponsible groups and directing every stall, supermarket and institution to provide sanitizer and ensure that every individual who wants to enter places crowded by many people to always wears a clean and thick face mask to closing body cavities that are easily entered by harmful pathogens such as the nose and mouth.

EFFECT ON AFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGY

   Sustainable Development Goal that is also affected by the COVID-19 pandemic is the seventh Sustainable Development Goal, which is affordable and clean energy whose main mission is to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all. This goal, if viewed roughly, has no close correlation with the COVID-19 pandemic; however if we observe and examine exactly about the relationship of these two things, we find that they are very influential with each other. So, how is it related?  

      

     Once Malaysians were instructed to live their lives in quarantine in their homes, people began to focus their daily activities online at home with family, where this led to increased use of electric energy in a home full of family members. This is unavoidable because working parents also need the use of electricity to work at home, their children also need a certain space to study online causing there is consumption of electric energy, especially in electric items such as fans, lights and gadgets such as laptops, smartphones, televisions and even Internet routers for a continuous Internet network at home. Otherwise, people quarantined at home will always be disconnected with the outside world for not knowing any news about the world situation in the COVID-19 pandemic while quarantined.  

     

      Because all these things are the needs of the community in this COVID-19 pandemic, this is very burdensome for the poor who are less able to afford the standard of living that is filled with the use of very much electric energy. Many residents are actually facing difficulties in paying electricity and water bills with declining sources of income since the break of this pandemic as the Government itself needs strong finances to fight this pandemic continuously and cover the costs of these losses faced. It is clear to us that the goal of realizing this seventh Sustainable Development Goal is very difficult with the existence of the COVID-19 pandemic in our country. 

     If we look from another aspect, the quarantine ordered by the government due to the COVID-19 pandemic that occurred in our country also encourages the community, especially young people to spend their time with gadgets such as smartphones and laptops to do activities that waste their time such as playing games and watching dramas where these entertainments are not prohibited but not encouraged for a long time as this not only wastes electricity at home but can also affect their health such as eye damage, back pain and can sometimes expose them to other diseases such as obesity and diabetes. 

     

     This practice also encourages teenagers to get used to the practice of wasting electricity when they are placed anywhere where they begin to lose awareness of the importance of saving electricity. In the middle of the quarantine season there were also electric outages in some areas due to heavy rains which caused a group of people to be affected by their daily activities due to lack of sources of electricity in the COVID-19 pandemic season where this matter became even worse when it also affects employees and students who desperately need electricity to do their works online.

     In addition, we must not forget about other energies such as sufficient cooking gas for the needs of daily life as the Malaysian community is advised to cook and eat at home to ensure the health of the family is maintained from COVID-19. This also affects some areas in rural areas, especially those who lack the resources they need as it is not only energy sources for cooking, but also electric energy to continue their daily activities like others.  

       

      However, we cannot ignore that there is a group of Malaysians who are very concerned about this matter and take action to donate aid and necessities to those who are severely affected by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic where even these groups are not directly affected as infected by these viruses, yet they also suffer from a variety of ways that sometimes other communities do not feel such distress. Therefore, we can prove that the occurrence of COVID-19 pandemic has a very severe impact on energy consumption in our country which is a big challenge to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal for affordable and clean energy to all levels of society.

EFFECT ON DECENT WORK AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

   One of the Sustainable Development Goals that has been severely affected since the break on the news of the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia is the seventh of the Sustainable Development Goal, which is decent work and economic growth where this goal originally operated to promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all individuals including in Malaysia. However, since the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, this goal has become increasingly impossible to achieve in Malaysia due to many factors. Firstly, we focus on the situation of various institutions and sectors severely affected by this COVID-19 pandemic.

     The business and enterprise sector is an important sector in Malaysia as this sector is a source or place for thousands of Malaysians to get their source of income as a trader and entrepreneur, especially many young entrepreneurs and small traders who are unstable sales and their business. However, after the Malaysian community was instructed to quarantine their homes, many premises, restaurants, and small stalls had to be closed because these places were often crowded with people which could lead to the spread of COVID-19 to the public except that only nearby premises or grocery stores are allowed to open with a limited number of people who can enter these stores at a time and in accordance with the SOP when entering the store such as wearing a face mask. It also aims to reduce the number of people leaving the home and only allow people with emergencies to leave their homes.  

     Of course, this can prevent the COVID-19 pandemic from spreading rapidly in the community, but at the same time, it is holding back the country’s economy because not only is our country in a state of lack of financial resources to provide effective treatment to treat this COVID-19 where the vaccine needed to fight this pandemic needs to be bought from abroad to get it, our country is also experiencing a crisis of lack of sources of income to meet domestic needs causing the country’s economy to retreat in addition to this further increasing the rate of poverty in the country. 

      Because of this, many small traders and entrepreneurs are changing the method of selling their goods to online sales on several websites and apps that are the third party to the current buying and selling online business such as Shopee and Lazada. In addition, applications such as Grab, and FoodPanda are also the main medium for stall and restaurant traders to continue their business through this application where it has a delivery system to the houses that order food from the food stalls.  

      The effect of changing methods has helped many traders and entrepreneurs to increase their sources of income, but the Internet medium has become one of the biggest challenges to society, especially the elderly. Online trading is leading to an increase in cyber crime which has managed to deceive the public especially people who are less proficient with this Internet technology by taking someone’s personal information such as bank accounts to rob money in other people’s banks. In addition, the closure of premises and institutions also caused many government workers to lose their jobs as a result of government efforts to reduce workers in one institution and sector because it could not afford the payment of salaries for many workers while actually now many workers are needed to redevelop the country’s economy especially in the medical sector.  

      The medical sector is also a much needed sector during this crisis where the sector is also affected mainly due to the lack of efforts of medical staff in hospitals and clinics which forced the Government to open initiatives that open up opportunities for graduates with undergraduate medical degrees to work contract in hospitals with conditions only working within a specified period where it is expected that after the end of this COVID-19 pandemic, many of these contract workers will lose their jobs as doctors due to expired due of their contracts.

     However, there are also many young people who are not willing to accept this job because they know the health risks of treating COVID-19 patients where they are likely to be infected with the virus while working. In addition, as we already know, the affected education sector also plays an important role in the economic development of the country in the future where the slowdown in the progress of community education causes the national economy will also decline because education is an important way to produce experts in future.

      In a sector so if education is stunted in Malaysia, then the country’s economy will also be stunted in the future. In addition, the tourism sector, which plays an important role in the country’s economic growth, is also affected by the Malaysian government’s directive that the country’s borders be strictly controlled so that no foreign visitors and locals come from other high -risk countries with COVID-19 such as the USA, Japan and China enters Malaysia where if this happens it will cause the spread of the COVID-19 virus to the Malaysian community more severely which can further affect the lives of the Malaysian community. 

     This action is very important because the COVID-19 pandemic spread to our country initially through close contact with infected individuals coming from abroad and it has been widely proven that every time an individual has a history of travel from a high-risk foreign country a week before they check up at the clinic has spread this covid-19 virus to dozens of people who have close contact with them. While this action is indeed important to reduce the spread of this epidemic, yet we cannot ignore the fact that restricting the entry of visitors abroad affects the tourism sector in turn having a huge impact on our country’s economy.

     In addition, the industrial sector is also one of the sectors affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The industrial sector is very important in Malaysia because this field is the starting point for the development of products and goods made in Malaysia where the quality can be guaranteed safe and clean for the use of Malaysians because most factories involved in manufacturing goods and products for the industrial sector in Malaysia is recognized by the authorities responsible for checking the safety of workers and the quality of the goods produced. 

     

       Following the implementation of quarantine throughout Malaysia due to this pandemic, the industrial sector was also forced to close because these factories are the gathering places for workers where continuation of this work can be considered as abuse against workers who can be fined against employers who ignore this directive. The closure of these factories also left thousands of workers out of work during the COVID-19 season where over time this led to layoffs by employers after months of these factories being closed due to the inability of employers to pay the salaries of many workers.

  

     Unlike the business sector which can start new initiatives through online buying and selling management, these workers can’t do anything to continue their jobs in this COVID-19 season unless there are some of them trying to find jobs other than their previous jobs that bringing in profits in this COVID-19 season such as opening their own business and enterprise. This causes many individuals to no longer contribute their energy in the industrial sector which in turn causes the industrial sector to decline in performance which can set the country’s economy back.

EFFECT ON RESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION

     Sustainable consumption and production refer to “the use of services and related products, which respond to basic needs and bring a better quality of life while minimizing the use of natural resources and toxic materials as well as the emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle of the service or product where this is very important especially in this covid-19 pandemic situation. The mission of this goal is to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns which are related to the consumption of plastic products and other important products such as face masks.  

     

       As we all know, one of the SOPs we need to follow to stop the COVID-19 network in society is to always wear a face mask. We are also advised to throw away our face masks after wearing them once where this clearly shows that there is a consumption of face masks that are very much used and discarded every day by the community which all this happens because of the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia. In addition, we can also see how many plastic items are used every day especially in the medical sector which requires a lot of consumption of plastic to dispose of materials and samples taken from thousands of people every day to enable the implementation of the SWAB test to identify infected individuals with this virus.  

       

       Indeed, this large consumption is very necessary as this is one way to protect themselves from the virus. Therefore, the use of plastic and recyclable materials such as face masks should be eliminated in an environmentally friendly manner in parallel with the consumption of these things. The community is strongly encouraged to adopt the practice of recycling other plastic products to reduce plastic waste on earth as plastic waste from medical consumption and personal protection equipment (PPE) equipment, such as gloves, medical masks, respirators, goggles, face shields, gowns, and aprons must be disposed of thoroughly in the right way so that this waste does not endanger public health in future.

CONCLUSION

      In conclusion, it is clear to us that the COVID-19 pandemic has a huge impact on the Malaysian society, especially in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic where this pandemic greatly changed the way of life of society in terms of social, economic, and educational where not directly this pandemic teaches a lot of Malaysian society to help each other while improving the general knowledge of proper self -care against the pandemic of dangerous diseases. 

       However, this does not change the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic brings many difficulties to the lives of the community where this also influences the progression of efforts to realize the Sustainable Development Goal in Malaysia. Almost all of the goals put forward were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic but some of the goals that were obviously affected included good health and well being (the third Sustainable Development Goal), quality education (the fourth Sustainable Development Goal), clean water and sanitation (the Sustainable Development Goal. Sixth), affordable and clean energy (seventh Sustainable Development Goal, decent work and economic growth (eighth Sustainable Development Goal) and responsible consumption and production (twelfth Sustainable Development Goal) .

      Through the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic events in Malaysia has taught me a lot to always be modest and frugal in the use of daily necessities while maintaining the best physical and mental health so that I can ensure my own safety during this pandemic. Envy us of this contagious virus thus being able to maintain the health of others as well.

  

    I also believe that the Malaysian government not only encourages the Malaysian community to take care of their own health but they also try to stabilize the uncontrollable situation due to this pandemic by taking wise action to quarantine the community in order to reduce the increase in COVID-19 patients and deaths as a result of the pandemic in addition to trying to provide free vaccines to all groups with the condition that the Malaysian community must register for the vaccine to facilitate the distribution of vaccines to everyone. Therefore, we also need to obey the instructions of the authorities from time to time so that we can take care of ourselves and others from this virus.

REFERENCE

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43621-021-00026-x

https://www.unwater.org/covid-19-pandemic-and-the-human-rights-to-water-and-sanitation/

https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2020/05/28/covid-19-intensifies-the-urgency-to-expand-sustainable-energy-solutions-worldwide

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/covid-19-crisis-makes-electricity-too-costly-for-millions-in-africa-asia

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsus.2021.647542/full

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352550921002001

https://covid-19.moh.gov.my/terkini

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bharian.com.my/amp/berita/nasional/2021/08/855555/stadium-negeri-kuala-terengganu-jadi-pkrc-bersepadu