NURUL AQILAH BT MOHAMAD NASIR

171342226

RY20

TEST 1

Question 1

a) The first causes of psychological hazard were feeling afraid of losing work. This can
cause psychological hazard such as anxiety towards the human health, especially adult. This
is because loosing job means losing the source of income, and thus will gives a lot of severe
consequences such as unable to buy food, unable to pay bills and medical expenses.

Next point on psychological hazard causes is the circumstances of working from

home. This especially trigger most working women as they unable to balance between work
and families. There are blurred boundaries between them. As for example, they need to take
of their baby at home while working as nursery closed. This can cause psychological hazard
such as depression towards them as doing both of them at the same time are extremely a
burden and exhausting.

In addition, the non-stop cases everyday also influencing as one of the causes for
psychological hazard. This will give a psychological hazard such as burnout symptoms and
post-traumatic stress disorder (PSTD) especially to the healthcare professional. PSTD is a
condition where someone can develop after experience a psychological trauma. For example,
doctors could develop trauma as working at the hospital always exposing them towards the
virus on regular basis, and also witnessed increasing illness and death from the Covid-19
patients. PSTD also could happened to the recover patients Covid-19 as they developed
trauma due to experienced being sick that could lead to death.

Furthermore, the domestic violence as per reported in news, during the MCO period
the increasing cases the domestic violence is terrifying. This is worrying issues as a whole
family will exposed towards the psychological hazard such as depression, anxiety and
thought of suicide. For example, abusing a child will hurts physically and also mentally
unstable as a child will be traumatized and depressed.

Last but not least, social distancing can also cause psychological hazard. Even though
practicing social distancing is practically necessary during MCO period, this also could
develop psychological hazard such as agoraphobia. This mental illness is determined by
being conspicuous fear to use public transportation, cannot be in open spaces and in crowd,
or even being outside of the home alone. The fear of anxiety towards the virus could even last
after the pandemic is over.

b) MCO stage can be seen from the table below:

Movement Control Order (MCO) Duration

Phase 1 18th -31st March 2020
Phase 2 1st -14th April 2020
Phase 3 15th - 28th April 2020
Phase 4 29th-3rd May 2020
Phase 5 -CMCO 4th-11th May 2020
Phase 6- CMCO 12th May- 9th 2020
Phase 7- RMCO 10th June till 31th August 2020
Phase 8- RMCO, all states 1th September till 31st December 2020
CMCO
-Selangor & Kuala Lumpur 14th October till 20th December 2020
-At certain area in Kedah, Penang Perak,
Negeri Sembilan, Johor and Kelantan 9th November till 20th December 2020
- Sabah 13th October till 20th December 2020
Phase 9- RMCO, all states 1st Jan 2021-31st March 2021

As can be observed from the table above, Malaysian have been through many phases
of MCO period until now. But in my opinion, the most struggling period for Malaysian are
during the early stages of MCO period. MCO have been ruled in order to control the
movement of people for reducing infection through personal contact. During the early stage
of MCO, people were having panic buying as the future seems so unclear and dark, as mostly
people afraid losing stock of food and also for not being able to go out of the home at all. The
panic buying causing a ruckus in the supermarket and end up with a hectic situation. But the
situation was under control after the MCO restriction have been clearly stated their condition.
 At the first stage, the MCO period needing people to shut down their premises and
also close all the operation in government and private sector. This affecting the business
owner as their losing their income, especially for the small business that living their income
day by day. Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin stated that Malaysia's economy is losing an
approximately MYR 2.4 billion a day during the MCO, a total of MYR 63 billion, due to the
suspension of all business activities. Over 66% of industries caused a remarkable drop in
prices that made it hard to sustain their firms sharp decline in foreign demand. At that time
during the early stage, economic were such in unstable rate as surgical mask price suddenly
becoming so expensive, and sanitizers selling at unbelievable price.

In addition, people also have been struggling as travel ban had been issued during the
MCO period. This mainly affecting the people working in the tourism industry. Malaysians
are not allowed to leave during the MCO period and non-citizens are not allowed entry the
country. Malaysians abroad may return, supplied that they are subject to physical evaluation
upon arrival and quarantine for 14 days. Therefore, most people losing their job as pilot,
flight attendant, hotelier and travel agency during the travel ban.

Aside from the economic loss, students also experience difficulty to adapt the new
norms of learning through online classes. There are several problems related to internet
connection, and also poverty to having those high technology mobile phone. A lot of people
struggle at that time as Covid-19 still a new case and pandemic is unfamiliar to most of the
people around the world. Compared to now, even though Malaysia still in RCMO period, a
lot have changed after experiencing for about a year. Malaysian now knew how to cope with
the situation and adapt well. For example, people now mainly doing business through online
platform and the Malaysian government have been reviewed the implemented measures and
currently in the 4th phase which is recovery under the 6-Phase Economic Recovery Plan
(6Rs) specified under the National Economic Recovery Plan – PENJANA.

c) First of all, the breakthrough action to overcome psychological hazard is by practicing

self-care. This method can be done through several ways. Firstly, get active. Doing
 activity such as yoga, taking walks, and any activity that require to move the body. Next,
learn something new. Being more at home may be a great idea to learn anything fresh,
starting with a reading new books and baking new recipe of cake.

Besides that, seeking help will also a way to overcome psychological hazard. In the case
for domestic violence, seeking help must be reached out to the ministry ‘Talian Kasih’
hotline. The Woman and Family Development Ministry should be responsible to handle this
kind of cases. For mental health, the healthcare professional would be able to help for
treatment and medication. This is because certain mental illness such as PSTD required
therapy and medication continuously in order to heal the patient.

Next, people especially parent need to practicing a work life balance. This may be hard
to do, but it is not impossible. Every spouse should learn to understand and helping each
other to the work at home. Manage the time by set up a routine everyday to help with the
house chore and babysitting. This way will reduce the stress and helping to treat depression
as stress and depression are closely related.

Recognize that feeling anxiety is completely normal is also an effective method to

overcome psychological hazard. A lot of psychologists have long recognized that anxiety is a
normal and healthy function to alerts on threats and helping on taking measures in order to
protect themselves. Thus, feeling anxiety over loosing a job during this pandemic is
considered normal. But this anxiety needs to be controlled in order to avoid having symptoms
of panic attack or depression.

Lastly, put a faith and believe that pandemic will be over. By believing that one day in
the future that the pandemic will be over, it will give a sense of comfort that everyone
needed. This is because nothing last forever, therefore avoid being too much fear over
everything. For example, feel too scared being outside of the home because of the viruses
even after the pandemic is over.