What is the difference between the US and Malaysia when dealing with the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic? Well, it is like black and white. While the number of the coronavirus infections and deaths continues to increase in the US (United States of America), a lot of people are protesting against the lockdown; on the other hand, here in Malaysia as the government is about to start to reopen the economy and lift the lockdown, more than 250, 000 signatures were garnered at Change.org in order to file a petition to stop the measures from being partially lifted. This is despite the number of cases being much lower than in the US with just 6,353 compared to 1.19 million and number of deaths which is 105 compared to 68,565.

Also the city of Penang, where I got stuck during the lockdown for the seventh week now, postponed reopening the economy and still continued with the full lockdown (or movement control order (MCO) .  Eventually the plan is to lift the lockdown on May 12, and yet there is a talk, it might even get extended to two more weeks. Mind you, the economy of Malaysia is also being affected tremendously. This just shows how serious this country, its government and its peoples about controlling the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus.