Forget about the new normal, are you ready for the next normal?

Covid-19 rules might be easing but the columnist isn't gambling with getting a new mutation or long Covid and will be keeping his mask on. — AP

I know somebody who, when he was told he needed to self-test negative for Covid-19 before visiting an elderly relative, declared he wouldn’t do so because he was worried he might find out he was positive.

Another held a gathering of about 20 people at which everyone diligently followed the SOP during prayers, but then took off their masks and chatted freely for about an hour while having dinner.

Another family found out that a few members were positive, but when advised by a doctor that those infected should quarantine themselves to keep the others safe, they literally laughed because... well, I really don’t know what is so amusing about a virus that has killed over six million people in the world so far.

What does the new normal feel like to you?

Do you always have a mask hanging around your neck or in your pocket, ready to be worn? Do you pull out your handphone while walking up to the shopping mall entrance so you can open the MySejahtera app, get to the check in page, scan the barcode and walk in without breaking stride?

Or are you now back to the old days, eating and yamcha-ing with friends, thanks to the double vax you received (boosted by that exposure you had last week to a positive case)?

The truth is that as of Friday, many restrictions for Malaysians will more or less have been lifted. However, I would argue that even before April 1, peoples’ behaviour had slowly been shifting. Many restaurants were filled with people at mealtimes, I would say half the people who walked around my neighbourhood were not visibly wearing masks (although many were carrying them), and friends and family visited each other across state lines with nary a worry.

But there have also been consequences. Over the last two weeks I know about half a dozen people from four different households have tested positive. I think that’s more than I have personally seen at any one time, I think.

About a week after the April 1 date was announced, there were over 300,000 cumulative active Covid-19 cases in Malaysia, the highest it had ever been. But there wasn’t a huge cause of concern for most people because the death rate was far lower than the previous surge in the middle of last year, when there were over 300 deaths a day. Conversely last month, at its peak there were 112 deaths, on March 12.

Surely this means that vaccinations work, the argument goes. And we shouldn’t have to mask or keep our distance any more.

The way I think about the Covid-19 virus is that it’s like you’re rolling dice. Some have 10 sides, some have 100 sides, some have even more. It doesn’t matter what you roll, as long as you don’t roll a one.

If you stay at home, don’t go out, and meet nobody who’s been outside face to face: Congratulations, you don’t need to roll any dice. But I think people have learned in two years of self-isolation that this is not good for work, and it’s not good for play.

So if you go out, you roll another dice. If you’re not wearing a mask, you roll another. If you eat in a crowded room while chatting with 20 other people, that’s a whole bunch of dice.

Not only has science helped us understand how to manage and mitigate the dangers of Covid-19, it also tells us how much we don’t understand about the long-term dangers.

Take the phenomenon of “Long Covid”, for example. Although most people who get Covid-19 after being vaccinated (and boosted) manage to recover, it’s becoming clear there are long-term effects.

For some, it is sporadic, like suddenly being out of breath after a bout of exercise for no good reason whatsoever. For others it’s potentially debilitating, like for those who get a serious version of “brain fog” that affects their attention span and memory, to the point that even driving a car becomes hazardous.

In fact, it is because the science has been so good at helping us understand the problem that the real issues in battling Covid-19 have actually been, well... almost everything else but the virus – ranging from vaccine hesitancy and government torpidity to hoping that liking and sharing of outrage on social media will somehow neutralise the virus.

I’ll tell you what else science is saying. Prof Wang Linfa, director of the Emerging Infectious Diseases Programme at Duke-National University of Singapore’s Medical School, says that we are lucky that SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) happened in 2003 instead of something similar to Covid-19. Although SARS had a 10% mortality rate, it was controllable by a complete quarantine – and should have been seen as a harbinger for what could happen next. Then in 2012, we had MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome). And still there wasn’t enough funding for research.

He suggests that these outbreaks and pandemics will become a regular occurrence. You can’t predict exactly when they will happen, like a tsunami or war, but you can prepare for them.

If the military can prepare during peace time for battles they hope never to fight, then we should be able to similarly prepare for the next pandemic.

He is clearly talking about what governments and academic institutions could be doing, but I can’t help but think about the duty of care that we the public should place on ourselves. We don’t even have to talk about the next virus, just the next variant of the current one.

The truth is that we can do so much now to mitigate the spread (and possible mutations) of Covid-19. Masks are a relatively cheap and reliable way to really reduce transmission. Self-testing is probably the most cost-effective way to be confident of your current status. Don’t fear the virus, but respect it.

But for some reason many feel that they can afford to roll the dice and gamble on the future, not only for themselves, but for those close to them – which isn’t the best way of preparing for the next normal.

---

In his fortnightly column, Contradictheory, mathematician-turned-scriptwriter Dzof Azmi explores the theory that logic is the antithesis of emotion but people need both to make sense of life’s vagaries and contradictions. Write to Dzof at [e-mail]. The views expressed here are entirely the writer's own.