How COVID-19 is Changing The World For The Better

By Ahmed Wafi

Where the silver lining in all the chaos lies

Fear for the virus, possible unemployment, quarantine blues and everything that came with COVID-19 seemed to have a negative ring to it. Is there really NOTHING good to come out of this?

Well, Winston Churchill once said “Never waste a good crisis”. So if we look beyond the crisis, we’ll see countless opportunities to grow and make an impact – even in times of a pandemic!

Here’s what we think were the good things thanks to COVID-19.

We practise better hygiene
Washing your hands, carrying around a bottle of hand sanitiser, coughing into your sleeve, avoiding touching commonly touched surfaces and our faces, wearing a mask when you’re sick… the list goes on as to how we are more conscious about public hygiene.

A better appreciation to our medical staff
And the rest of our frontliners working hard to make a living to provide us with our daily essentials (a big shoutout to delivery drivers!).

This pandemic has taught us the importance of our medical staff and how they risk their lives for our safety. With Malaysians being a grateful bunch, we are giving them the recognition they deserve. Medical staff have been rewarded with freebies and discounts all around, not to mention the loud cries for a raise in pay!

Not only in Malaysia but around the world too. In the English Premier League, clubs wear the National Health Service Logo printed on their jerseys in a blue heart.

More people get to #WFH
We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again. The future of work is at home. And working from home has made us realise that a lot of things can be addressed via email or short video calls, saving us the unproductive hours of long and unnecessary meetings.

We develop more empathy
MCO was some of the toughest times many of us have ever seen. Many lost their jobs and businesses were put to a complete halt. The true colours of Malaysians were shown during this time seen in the likes of Ebit Lew among many other charity workers helping the less fortunate. Read about heart-warming acts of kindness here!

All that free time…
…To improve ourselves! Many of us took advantage of the free courses offered by multiple organisations, including MDEC’s 3,800 over free courses to unemployed Malaysians. Some even started businesses or ventured into the gig economy!

Photo by Edward Howell and Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

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