Continuing from my previous post, on matters of decreased quality of livelihood due to Covid-19 pandemic. Unlike when we first encountered the Covid-19 March last year (not much was known about the virus and how to prevent its spread), we have now gained more than a year of experience to cope with this pandemic. Scientificwise, some of this experiential knowledge is perhaps summarized in this article by Nature, "COVID research: a year of scientific milestones". But yet, our problems are from over - the pandemic still rages on with new strains of the virus appearing (the latest being the lambda-variant - see also here). It is good that Malaysia has beefed up the vaccination rate (ignoring all the political and economic setbacks) as it seems there is a race against mutation rate of the virus if people kept getting infected at large (see Nature's article: "The coronavirus is mutating - does it matter?"). Even with vaccination, Covid-19 infection is still possible (the symptoms being milder) - near personal experience of my other half when one of her (vaccinated) staff was Covid-19 positive (infected from elsewhere). Due to this, the clinic was closed all last week and my other half had her two swab tests at closed intervals; the second one was due to the infected staff. All returned test results are thankfully negative and my other half had his pink wrist-band (signalling the need for self-quarantine) removed end of last week. Having to inspect patients, the risks will still be there for my other half and hence the family. At home, my concerns are with the kids previously all unvaccinated. Luckily, two of them got their appointments late last week due to work and were given their first dose. My eldest and youngest have yet to get their appointments.
As for me who is working at home, my work problems are only mere deadlines. Thank God, I've completed all the final exam questions now and have submitted the marks for continuous assessment of the two courses I'm teaching last weekend. This only provides only a small breathing space, as I have many other duties to finish off - reports, paper editing, thesis reading. One meeting last week reminded us of our duties and also of assets under our name. In some way, several years back, I have stopped buying things under research grants, apart from one instance, to get a computer fro students to work on (sharing among a few). These days, we are not allowed to buy computers or even printer toners. For theorists, these are mainly our equipment and consumables - but now we can only use the grant for students and travel (which is now absent). I hope those decision makers will consider all these constraints before blames are put on us (yet again). All these are now under our own personal expenses (no, I'm not complaining but merely trying to paint the real picture). Recently, my Mathematica subscription has ended and I had to forego renewing since I have just too many commitments. Due to all the online teaching I had to subscribe some services to aid my teaching. Earlier in the year, had to disappoint my sons wishing for new computers but instead they had their old computers repaired. Felt bad. My son who was registered for a MSc degree in UPM, also has decided not to continue his studies given the current MCOs and the inability to get lab work done. He is now working in a private lab, doing the lab testings for Covid-19.
What will be our (near) future looks like? Like everyone else, one is frustrated with the current politics and handling of the economy. I certainly think we need to think out of the box. Even in education, this is a good time for a rethink.
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