Above: Today, the number of new Covid-19 cases nationwide shot up more than two-fold.
During my long stay with family, I’ve booked some domestic trips. In fact, yesterday I had just snapped up Kuching to Langkawi (2h15 flight) for MYR12 (USD3) which is essentially free apart from the airport tax. And the same fare coming back. It was a promo for the re-instatement of the non-stop route. That’s for late November.
But next up, in about two weeks, I’m headed to Sabah for some of the world’s best diving. That is followed by some time in Peninsular Malaysia.
But the ever-changing Covid-19 situation now means that’s all in doubt. Malaysia had been doing rather well in containing Covid. In fact, on some days a few weeks ago, the whole country had fewer cases than just Auckland!
The state of Sabah had an outbreak amongst illegal immigrants in detention. There was a leakage from there and with a state election looking, they chose not to lockdown promptly.
The situation has deteriorated and spread a little to the rest of the country.
My home-state now requires:
- a two week hotel quarantine (paid for by the state) if I return from Sabah.
- a test if returning from the Peninsula, and a hotel quarantine until the test results are known, and continuing the remainder of the two week quarantine at home.
With these tough travel restrictions, it looks like my next domestic trip will not be happening.