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