Essay: COVID-19 Pandemic and Its Impact on a Student’s Life during MCO

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease that caused by a newly identified virus. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared on 11 March 2020 the outbreak of a pandemic COVID-19. Most people that has infected with the COVID-19 virus will develop from mild to moderate respiratory disease and recover without any special treatment being needed. Older individuals, including those who are underlying medical conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and chronic respiratory disease are more likely to experience with serious illness. Being well educated about the Covid-19 virus, the illness it causes and how it spreads is the best way to avoid and slow down the transmission. Protect yourself and other from having an infection by washing your hands or regularly using alcohol based rub and do not touch the face. The COVID-19 virus spread primarily by the droplets of saliva or the discharge from the nose when an infected person coughs or sneezes. It is important for the citizen to learn and practices respiratory etiquette such as by coughing into a flexed elbow. Authorities have declared a pandemic plan of action in several countries include Malaysia. Malaysian Government has issues the Movement Control Order (MCO) starting from 18 March 2020 and extended for almost 3 month due to the increase cases of COVID-19 in the country.
As a student, the pandemic of COVID-19 has brought a lot of impact toward me either it is from mental, health, economy and other. During the MCO was introduced, UNIMAS was holding a mid-semester break. Coincidentally, at that time I was already at my village for the break. My sister and I are very grateful to have been able to return to the village before the cases increase and also before the government implements the MCO. During the MCO, all movement and even outdoor activities are limited. At that time, my family and I had to lock ourselves at home and reduce out movement to the city except to buy the food supply. Alhamdulillah, before the government enforce the order, my mother and I were ready to buy and supply adequate food in the house. But this curfew did not have much effect on my movements as I was accustomed to stay at home when the holiday because I help my mom to take care of my nephew. But this curfew order affected me to do leisure activities outside the house because usually in the evening, I will bring my nephew to play at the yard. But that time, we need to play inside the house only because patrols were often carried out and if there were residents roaming outside the house, they would be reprimanded by the authorities and if they were found to have committed such offenses frequently, they would be fined.
This MCO also caused UNIMAS to extend the mid-semester break from one week to three months. During the three month break, all the activities and classes will be postponed and will be conducted in early June through online. Most of the student can be said to be still shocked that time. They did not expect that the “holiday” this time was unusually long. That mean that all the activities inside the academic calendar will be change. Actually on June, the second year students need to undergo industrial training in their respective places. But, this time, we need to postponed our industrial training due to the changes in our academic calendar. We need to do the industrial training during the third year and that mean we need to compete with other second year students that from the same place.
The COVID-19 outbreak has force all the University to used online learning methods so that the student can finishes all the syllabus for this semester. This method really give challenges especially for the rural area’s student like me. Having a poor connection really challenges for the student because they need to find a suitable place and having a stable connection for them to attend the online classes and complete all the assignment that has been assign. Besides that, I need to divided my time as daughter to do the house chore such as cooking and clean the house and also be as a student to complete the assessment and the assignment that given by the lecturer. The environment also not suitable for me to do the work given as I need an Internet access to do my work. I need to stay up early in the morning so that I can get the stable Internet connection to complete and submit my work. There also many distraction that I need to face to attend the online class and also to do the assignment especially when there is a task that need us to record the video. Actually, I really prefer to have physical class that need a face to face interaction with the lecturer. This is because it will make me more understand with what they taught. When having a difficulty to do the assignment, the group members can having a meeting to guide each other to do the work. Student also can go to the Cais, to find a suitable material in order can help them in guiding to complete the work with high internet connection. Having an online class with the lack of Internet access really give me a hard time to complete this semester, with all the distraction that I need to faced.
In conclusion, the increasing of the COVID-19 cases was not expected by many people because we are now in technology era. All the effort that have done by the government to prevent and reduce transmission of the COVID-19 virus had an impact on the community. the community need to help the government by complying with every directive and prohibition given by the government in order to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and also to ensure that our country will be free from the pandemic.