I Got the All Day Quarantine Blues

I got the all day quarantine blues

Been reading all the daily news

If you gonna avoid the Covid flu

You gotta pay your dues

Malaysian Search and Rescue helicopter flying over a mothballed cruise-ship and while keeping the sea border shut.

Last night the Malaysian Prime Minister announced the extension of the Movement Control Order (MCO) for another two weeks till May 12th. I really expected the extension would come with some relaxation of rules, but so far I haven't heard of any lightening up. Malaysia has been very aggressive in tamping down their new Covid-19 cases.

This graph is the daily new cases of Covid-19 in Malaysia, a not small country of 31 million, showing a clear decline. The MCO restricts movement beyond 10km  of your residence, and only for essentials. It is enforced using police roadblocks and gentle evening text messages to everyone's phone. While most everyone has a cell phone here, they are typically on prepaid plans or limited data plans. The government has setup so all cell companies automatically give each cell phone 1 GB of extra free data each day from 8am to 6pm as an inspiration to stay at home. Compliance to the MCO is generally very good. They do arrest a few scofflaws and place them in a separate detention home to drive the point home in the media. The stories make a big splash when the evil doers are ex-pats.

The testing coverage rate in Malaysia is fairly high. The positive test rate is 4.7%, a strong indication that they are doing significant testing coverage.  WHO recommends a 10% or less rate. The US is at about 20% and South Korea at 3%. Washington state is at 8.3%. Malaysia recently ordered one million rapid test kits from South Korea in the competitive international testing supplies market. Like most other countries, Malaysian health workers have suffered from the pandemic, with a 32 year old nurse dying yesterday from Covid-19.

I am pretty proud to publicly announce that other than in our dreams neither Chris nor I have inflicted anything close to permanent damage on each other. I'm hoping other couples aspire to such lofty goals. 

The next big issue for cruisers here will be expiring visas. During the MCO all of our visas are being automatically extended. The current understanding of the rules is that when the MCO is lifted we will have 14 days to leave the country. Unfortunately there is nowhere open to take our boat to, other than the US, and it isn't clear we will be allowed back in if we fly out, leaving the boat behind.

Cruisers here in Langkawi certainly have it far better than our friends who are a third of the way across the Indian Ocean in The Maldives. The densely populated main city, Male, has had a rapid increase in Covid-19 cases. The islands have been shut to the country's primary industry, tourism, for months and they recently had a terrorist attack that burned down official boats near Male. The agent that is dealing with the 15 cruising boats recently sent a long message to them that included this note from the Coast Guard:

The coastguard commander asked me to inform you that he is suggesting to all the yachts to be prepared to leave the country in case the situation gets out of control. Which means in case of emergency you must all make back up plan about your next destination from Maldives. Of course they will not ask you or command you to leave the country without sufficient food supplies and water and fuel. They are not heartless. They completely understand the gravity of the situation. They assured us in a case like that they will facilitate the necessary means to provide sufficient food supplies and fuel, water and make arrangements. 

Most all of these boats would like to sail off, the problem is there are few, if any, places that will allow them in. Hopefully they will work out a decent plan in the next week or so.

Stay healthy and hang in there

Paul

Days into the MCO

Seattle isn't new to pandemic lock-downs. This is the Green Lake street car that ran between Seattle and Green Lake. The conductor is stopping the man on the right from boarding the trolley because he has no face mask. In those days the leaders didn't announce public health recommendations for the people while saying they weren't going to follow the recommendations themselves. The naming of pandemics for political purposes is not new either. The pandemic above is the 1918 Spanish Flu. The flu was extensive in the United Kingdom, France, the US and Spain. The allies were gearing up for war and wanted to control the message to avoid any thoughts that they were anything but strong and not to interrupt the troop recruiting.  Spain was a neutral country, so they got labeled with the flu.

Here, the Malaysian authorities are now doing an admirable job of enforcing social distancing. The Malaysian Movement Control Order (MCO), enacted March 18th, has been extended till April 14th. It is fairly strictly enforced with numerous roadblocks manned by the police and army. It is pretty likely that it will be extended again, perhaps in a modified fashion. Ramadan, the month long Islamic celebration, is coming up on April 23rd. It will be important that the social distancing is managed during this time or Malaysia will have another flare up of cases. About 60% of the covid19 cases in Malaysia can be traced back to a local "tabligh", a multi-day religious gathering, that occurred in late February.

Above is the Rebak Resort pool when it was still full, before the last resort guests got out. The water's been emptied now, making it less tempting to violate the MCO and go swimming in it.

The island has some nice wild life. Lots of Rhinoceros Hornbills. The ones on the bottom are doing synchronized feather cleaning.

With the resort closed the monkeys are taking advantage of the empty room balconies. Not sure if this is a little foreshadowing of the outcome from the pandemic, Planet of the Apes style. 

What's she thinking?

Not all monkeys are good monkeys. These are the bad monkeys getting into the trash.

The island supports some serious lizards. This Asian water monitor lizard has a pretty impressive forked tongue. She's big girl, at  least 6-7 feet long.

The island has about a 104 people on it now. Probably 75 cruisers and the rest are the skeleton resort staff. Most of the boats are empty, with their owners hunkered down in their respective home countries around the world. For those of us left here, we have lots of time to contemplate the outcome of the pandemic and think about when, and if, we will be able to move on. Now, on occasion, people have said I am a pessimist. When it comes to survival situations, I've always believed in the Stockdale Paradox. Admiral Stockdale was the most senior officer incarcerated in the 'Hanoi Hilton', the infamous North Vietnamese prison for US prisoners of war during the Vietnam War.  As explained by Stockdale to an interviewer the paradox goes like this:

I never lost faith in the end of the story, I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.^[21]

When Collins asked who didn't make it out of Vietnam, Stockdale replied:

Oh, that's easy, the optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, 'We're going to be out by Christmas.' And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they'd say, 'We're going to be out by Easter.' And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.^[21]

Stockdale then added:

This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.^[21]

We've been singing Happy Birthday multiple times in a row. Not just to time how long we wash our hands, but also to celebrate Chris' and my birthdays over the lat few weeks. Our new philosophy:  Getting old isn't for sissies.
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Our current leaders respond to disasters in the same way as the prehistoric ones:

Paul