12/07/2020 11:20 PM
KUALA LUMPUR, July 12 -- Amidst allegations of Malaysian authorities mistreating foreigners during the Movement Control Order (MCO) to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, some foreigners are seeing the positive side of things and have commended the authorities’ response to curb the deadly virus.
One of them, is online entrepreneur and YouTuber from United Kingdom (UK), Darren Cronian who took to his channel (Remote Darren) to comment on the initiatives of Malaysia and the government in tackling the crisis.
In an eight-minute video he uploaded, Cronian shared his side of the story whilst stranded in Malaysia for almost 11 weeks, alone in his apartment to deal with the pandemic in a foreign country.
Cronian’s video has raked up close to 13,000 hits in six hours since he uploaded it on YouTube. His video was also shared by Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah on Facebook today.
The 46-year-old Englishman said he was impressed with the way local authorities handled the situation by implementing the MCO throughout different states to minimise the movement of the people.
“When I saw Malaysia jumped into action, while UK was still opened for business, I made a decision that I must be strong myself (committed) to stay here and to see it through however long it would take.
“I have to say I am incredibly impressed with how Malaysia was handling COVID-19 as they jumped straight into action with MCO and made sure people were not moving around while you could only go out to buy food and essentials,” he said.
Cronian admitted it was not nice to see the images of some neighbourhoods surrounded by barb wires but it had to be done, as Malaysia has a good leadership and the Ministry of Health (MOH) approached the problem extremely well.
He said that he did not pay much attention to the political or religious side but had kept a positive mind and felt what Malaysia had done, was a model which should be followed by the rest of the world.
“How Malaysia dealt with this pandemic was amazing, and while quarantined for 11 weeks, I was shadowboxing to Rocky’s theme tune, I was weightlifting using water bottles and I spent a lot of time looking out of the window,” he said.
He also said that the loneliness and quietness in his apartment sometimes drove him mad but he was thankful to the people of Malaysia who contacted him and asked him how he was doing and whether he needed anything, and this made him felt much better as he had people looking out for him.
Apart from that, Cronian said when he went to the Immigration office to extend his visa and found it was closed, he then realised that people in this country took this pandemic very seriously.
“The people of this country is part of the reason why this pandemic was not as bad as in other countries around the world.
“When you look at Malaysia’s figures compared to UK or other European countries, a lot of it has to do with people’s cooperation. Just by staying at home, the people are complying with the lockdown, and thanks to everyone here, it could’ve been so much worse,” he said.
Cronian ended his video by thanking Malaysia for looking out for him and providing him with a safe home, and he especially appreciated Malaysians who kept in touch with him throughout the past 11 weeks under the lockdown.
-- BERNAMA
