Conditional Control Movement Control Order(CMCO) BACK in Klang Valley, Malaysia. Might as well share some knowledge.

Remember the two surveys I was constantly promoting a couple months back regarding COVID-19?

Well, we presented it during a conference last month. I didn’t want to share it because I’m in the midst of writing a paper and MCO was over. However, now it’s back, I feel why not share? (Keep in mind more analysis and limitations will be mentioned in the paper later on)

1.      We did two KAP posters (MCO & CMCO), however, we chose to present CMCO one because it’s more detail and had better understanding. Both surveys showed similar results tho-high knowledge (>90%) , positive attitude & good practice. To this day, no vaccine of COVID-19 is on the market. However, we survived the first wave through our behaviour-good understanding of the disease (knowledge), trust in the government and intervention measures (attitude), and adopting new norms (practice). We adopt and modified (to local setting) a questionnaire done by China.

2.      We also compare problems face by Malaysians during MCO & CMCO. Based from a questionnaire done by Canada, we asked Malaysians of the main problems during quarantine and categorized them into either no problems or one of the 4 main problems: emotional difficulty during confined, separation from family, inability to get basic necessities, and loss of income. Other than “inability to get basic necessities” (most likely reduced due to relaxation of restriction and enough supplies during CMCO), all other problems increased. This is support by the “stressor during quarantine” from a systemic review from the Lancet and increased psychological-related reported calls received by local crisis supports organisations. A paper was published that highlighted lockdown causing serious mental health effects on vulnerable groups. Although lockdowns seem like an effective public health tool by slowing down the virus transmission, an intervention need to be introduced to protect the mental health. This pandemic may take a while and we can’t let mental health to continue to be the cost. Mental health is a part of public health.

3.      Other than problems, we compared the precaution measures taken by Malaysian during MCO & CMCO. Other than increase in masks usage, there were decrease in hand sanitiser, regular hand washing and proper cough ettiques (maybe due to complacency). Although there is an increase awareness on masks and social distances, a recent study from Japan shows an ethanol sanitizers can inactivate in 15 seconds. A more focus on hand sanitiser/hand washing practice and program should be consider by the public and government.  In the CMCO study, we also explore the barriers of practicing precaution measures-costs, conviences, and lack of knowledges.

That’s it. A short summary of our research. More analysis on the data will be done for the paper. The virus is in our community. Wash your hands, be safe, sanitize your hands, take care of your health. InsyaAllah, a vaccine will come. Just gotta ride this wave a bit more.