The 3rd Wave

"Malaysia is currently entering the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, said Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah." - The Star newspaper (a Malaysian publication)

I don't think anyone living has seen the scale this pandemic has affected the millions of lives - some say the economic impact could be worst than the Great Depression in the 1930s - how bad was it back then I wouldn't know but I do know that things aren't looking good at all - I hope I m not being too pessimistic.

The above photo was during the 1918 influenza pandemic - wear a mask or go to jail. Photograph: Raymond Coyne/Courtesy of Lucretia Little History Room, Mill Valley Public Library.

At this time of writing in Melbourne - our team there have experienced almost 100 days of strict lockdown even when the numbers are hovering at 15 new cases on a daily basis. In Malaysia, it's 800+ now and we are experiencing Conditional Movement Control Oder. In Jakarta with the demonstration (burning bus stations) and high numbers of death from covid-19, I am not able to comment much about it but from my last conversation with the team over there on the situation, it seems that everyone is still in good spirit - Indonesians are very resilient. Singapore is going through a 3rd phase of the circuit breaker and things are looking better over there.

Focusing on our core production facility in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - at this moment, we are planning ahead - learning from past experience - as of now we are stocking our supplies as the supply chain is what will affect our business most. Constant monitoring of our supplies and ensuring we have ample supplies are critical.

We have kept this hush but we recently move to a state of the art facility at Damansara Heights, and every aspect of the new facility was built for this pandemic. Unfortunately or fortunately the move was during the harshest period but it was a blessing in disguise as we are able to architect it to cater for the worst if it so happens. Every thought process was built to cater to a pandemic and every technology available today like mask detection, fever detection, and even sanitisation liquids that could stay on the skin or surface (even after washing) for a period of 24 hours, killing 99.8% of bacterias were sourced and implemented. Our security system was the best technology available, network firewalls in place, endpoint technologies, encryption systems, touch-less face detection door access systems, and social distancing. I like to say that our new site is like a Fort Knox. *laughs*

Our phone lines could also be routed to softphone applications on those responsible, making working from home possible as well as supporting our customers when they need us.

What I am most proud of is actually our new Data Center built right in our office which I feel could rival any small bank or insurance companies data center. We did some research on it and engaged Huawei Technologies to construct our data center. I won't reveal much in here but all I can say is that its state of the art.

As we speak, government SOP is constantly changing but we went ahead with getting all our staff tested for Covid-19, reducing the number of operating staff at our facility (thankfully all tested negative to Covid-19 and declaring our new home bacteria free and covid-19 safe zone which we will continue to protect, and activating our new system in place to allow our support staff to work from home. Being agile and fast is our key strength when maneuvering this ship to the unknown. I don't know where we will be in the future but today we are blessed to say that we still have work to do. Thank you to all our customers who have supported us.

Yew Jin