Quarantine

April 2020, Day14 MCO | Selangor, Malaysia

It is the day-14 of MCO enforcement in my country. Movement Confinement Order (MCO) is an alternative term rephrasing the act of "Lockdown" in a resolution of containing the COVID-19 outbreak within the country. At the point of writing, over 2800 confirmed cases have been reported in Malaysia with a fatality rate of 1.5%.  COVID-19 is believed to originate from Wuhan. I used the word 'believed' because it is still an ongoing pandemic. This is my story about what happened throughout the outbreak.

Source:IAGMacau

January 2020 | The Cotai Strip, Macau

We were so busy anticipating the CNY coming in just days. The kitchen is rolling hot pushing for "mise-en-place" -- a common term to describe kitchen preparation ahead of an event, particularly pre-processing the ingredients. Which then we became noticing an incident at a city in China -- Wuhan. What has been popping around my Wechat feed is people having flu-like symptoms and fever related to a wet market-gone-wrong outbreak. At that point, it was unclear if the flu is contagious. The news felt like another single-event case that I read on a daily basis such as a food-poisoning case.

Day1, CNY | The Cotai Strip, Macau

We started HOT amid the local flu-related news in Wuhan a few days ago. We were still serving at 80% capacity with 1500 covers across breakfast, lunch, and dinner; all-40-chefs-on-deck covering multiple shifts for the day where I was one of the core players for the day-breaking team spearheading ahead a good day in the kitchen. All of sudden, we begin to receive unofficial news that the border has been 'closed' following the announcement of Wuhan under lockdown. Living in Macau, a part of China with the 'dual autonomy system' we often receive news here and there but until we heard from our direct supervisor, we stayed focused on our on-hand assignments.

Day2, CNY | The Cotai Strip, Macau

"The Lion dance has been canceled." The message that struck my head which led me to believe that things started to turn serious. Lion dance in Macau is the spotlight of CNY. Our company is among the leaders in the industry. Each year we have a big team of 12-lions for a praying ceremony, then the lions headed to all major departments and restaurants respectively. Then we noted Day-2 was merely half of the business we did in the previous day. And the figures continue to decline over the following days. The border indeed was closed. Macau constantly fostering 70% of tourists carrying an Individual Visiting Scheme "IVS" -- a 7-day tourist visa issued to the mainland Chinese. After the announcement of IVS suspension, meaning the major Chinese market is no longer allowed to enter the city.

Day5, CNY | University Campus, Macau

The management of the school starting to feel pressure, thermometer temperature check whenever I enter and exit the dormitory lobby floor. One night they knocked at my door at 11pm when I was already half-asleep, conducting a spot-check they say, to do head-counting of all active residents. Since it was CNY, most of the students were out of campus, gone just days before the pandemic became a regional issue. I was also prompted about a campus-wide lockdown, that any resident who was at that time staying on campus, should straightly refrain themselves from any activity in the city or even outer-city. There is a 500m tunnel connecting my campus and the rest of Macau, therefore at that point, the school was putting effort trying to isolate itself, there were even rumors that the school going to man the tunnel entrances. "Is the public bus still running?" I asked. "Yes, but you are STRONGLY ADVISED not to go out". "So if I did go out, you wouldn't know?" "err... I guess?" said the attendee who performed the spot-check. After all, they were just as clueless about the situation as we were. I knew it was a matter of time until they find out I was in-and-out of the campus due to routine work. And I couldn't bear the pressure if I hit the jackpot and indeed sparked a cluster on my campus because I worked in a hotel dealing with travelers from everywhere. So, I packed my luggage and crashed at my college's place in Taipa. They were on a 3 weeks vacation in Europe where they have asked me to stay in their resident to take care of their kitten. The kitten nowadays has a better life than us.

Source:GGRAsia

February 2020 | Taipa, Macau

It was my regular day off. Business in the restaurant dwindled to about 30% capacity (500 covers per day), hotel occupancy rate dropped to 25% due to most of the tourists who travel with IVS now is on the last day of their permitted period of stay. Hong Kong was the second major group of visitors. Their primary transportation, ferry, was instructed for suspension of service between Macau-Hong Kong. Then we heard about more cities in China that have announced lockdowns. In the evening I've received a text from my superior that I can have my second off day. And suddenly I realized that I didn't have the chance to say goodbye to my colleagues as the company announced most of the F&B operations have been suspended, including the closure of my workplace. By coincidence, I met one of my senior colleagues during dinner, they are unofficially asking us to take our flight back to our home. Most of us flew within a day or two following the suspension of F&B operations. Two of my Philippines co-worker wasn’t as lucky as they were stranded at the airport when their government making the restriction announcement banning arrivals from China, which included Macau.

Since then, I'm back in my home safe and sound, where our politician maliciously overthrew the once-ruling government. Back then we were at two-digit confirmed cases, but it wasn't long until the politician realized that isn't good timing for the political surge. Cases continue to rise as one of the religious gatherings with 15,000 participants was breached. As it hits 350 cases, the government announced MCO in place.

The pandemic is no doubt a global catastrophic which at the point of writing, there isn't a definite solution yet to be discovered. According to the previous global pandemic incident, namely SARS and MERS, it took six to nine months until the final case subsided. Most of our society regardless of nationality has no clue and preparation for such an incident. No one has a sustainable supply of masks or other hygiene protection equipment, no hospital was ever prepared for hundred and thousands of incoming patients within 24 hours, no company has the resources of sustaining with negative income but burning labor-cost. It was quoted 70% of Malaysian citizens do not have the capability of self-sustaining for 6 months of unemployment.

I was in sustainability research for the tourism industry. The time is now for the generation to think really think about global sustainability. Apart from being proactive in generating profitability, what have we done on crisis-management and global sustainability? Are we prepared for the long run?

ZF

#Pandemic #sustainability #stayathome #stayhomechallenge #Malaysia #Macau #hotel #food&beverage