Malaysia's all states except Sarawak go back into partial lockdown (MCO 2.0), state of emergency declared by the King

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Malaysia's King declares state of emergency till Aug 1 to curb spread of Covid-19.

 

https://youtu.be/Es7N1XdvXpA

COVID-19 | Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin today unveiled tougher measures to control the spread of Covid-19.

This includes the implementation of full movement control order (MCO) on eight states and territories.

They are Penang, Selangor, Malacca, Johor, Sabah, Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Labuan.

Another six states will be under the ongoing conditional MCO but with stricter rules than the existing ones.

Perlis and Sarawak are the only two states that will see the most relaxed rules as they will be put under the recovery MCO.

However, the Sarawak government today moved to place Kuching, Sibu and Miri under a conditional MCO.

Muhyiddin, in a live address on national TV, said the MCO will take effect at midnight of Jan 13 until Jan 26. 

 Interstate travel ban

For states under MCO and conditional MCO, the prime minister said social activities involving gatherings will be banned, similar to measures during the MCO in March last year.

“To reduce the risk of infection and to break the Covid-19 chain, social activities involving large gatherings such as wedding reception, conference, religious parades including Thaipusam, meetings, seminars, courses and group sports will not be allowed in any way,” he said.

However, he said states under the recovery MCO can still carry out social activities, but subject to strict standard operating procedures (SOP).

Furthermore, Muhyiddin said an interstate travel ban will be imposed nationwide.

As for states under the full MCO, they will see stricter rules as interdistrict travel is also not allowed.

"With the interstate and interdistrict travel ban, roadblocks will be enforced from midnight of Jan 13.

"For states under MCO, the movement will only be limited to within a 10km radius," he said.

Muhyiddin added that only two persons per household are allowed to leave the house to purchase necessities from supermarkets and grocery stores.

He said the two persons per vehicle rule also applies.

Essential services

Similar to the MCO in March last year, Muhyiddin said only businesses on the essential economic sector list will be allowed to operate.

“The government has identified five sectors that will be allowed to operate and are categorised as essential economic sectors.

“They are manufacturing, production, construction, services, trade and distribution as well as plantations and commodity,” he added.

Muhyiddin said these sectors are allowed to operate as they are needed to ensure the supply chain of essential goods.

However, he said only 30 percent of their administrative staff will be allowed to operate from the office.

The prime minister also urged those who are allowed to continue working to abide by the SOPs.

He added that the International Trade and Industry Ministry will provide further details on the types of services that are considered essential economic sector.

 

Muhyiddin said restaurants in states under full MCO are not allowed to provide dine-in services.

They will only be allowed to provide takeaway services.

However, he said restaurants in states under the conditional MCO and recovery MCO may continue to operate as per normal, subject to the Health Ministry’s SOP.

Elaborating on the full MCO states, Muhyiddin said supermarkets, clinics, hospitals, pharmacies and banks will continue to operate but with precautions.

He added that students who will be sitting for their 2020 and 2021 SPM papers will still be allowed to attend school.

As for religious activities, he said only a maximum of five people in places of worship is allowed.

However, religious activities in places of worship located in states under the conditional and recovery MCO can still proceed, in accordance with the SOP.

One distinction from the MCO in March last year is that outdoor exercising is allowed.

However, Muhyiddin said they may only do so with members of the same household.

He added that those going out for jogging or cycling should only do so with one other person at most.

Group exercise is not allowed.

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Invasion of the web trackers

Here’s how you can thwart websites from tracking your every movement.

 

THERE are several reasons that your Windows 10 PC is overrun by web trackers, bits of software code that follow you online to help marketers learn more about you.

The money trail

Nearly all commercial websites use them to create an elaborate profile of your tastes and habits, a profile that the websites can use themselves or sell to others.

Your online movements are tracked by cookies (bits of code left in your web browser), Google and Facebook tracker software (that follows you even when you aren’t on their websites), session recorders (that record everything you do on a website), key-loggers (that record what you type into text boxes on a website, even if you don’t submit anything), beacons (invisible objects in a web page that record how many times you viewed that page) and “fingerprinting” (a record of the technical details of your computer that can be used to identify you.)

While privacy advocates are aware of web trackers, most people aren’t. As a result, web tracking keeps expanding.

A recent study showed that 87% of the most popular websites now track your movements, whether you sign in to the website or not (see tinyurl.com/yyy5qyas).

You can view the web trackers on any website at tinyurl.com/y2em59e6.

Also, Windows 10 may indeed attract more web tracker software, because it collects more personal information about you than earlier versions of Windows did.

Microsoft shares some of that information with advertisers.

Throw it off track

Until recently, web browsers didn’t offer much protection against web tracking.

The latest versions of the four most popular browsers – Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari – have improved (but not perfect) anti-tracking features.

A reviewer of the latest Safari browser reported that it blocked 90 web trackers in five minutes of online activity.

But be sure your browser’s anti-tracking features are turned on.

Also, adjust the privacy settings in Windows 10.

The Windows 10 settings you may want to change include the “advertising ID” (monitors your online travels for advertisers), “location tracking” (helps advertisers localise what they promote to you), “Timeline” (keeps track of what you’re doing so that you can switch from one PC to another without interruption) and Cortana, the Windows 10 digital assistant (monitors your location, email, contacts, and calendar, and keeps a record of every “chat” you’ve had with Cortana).

You can also add more anti-tracking add-ons to your web browser.

Top-rated add-ons include Duckduckgo Privacy Essentials, Privacy Badger and Ghostery. – Star Tribune/tribune News Service - By STEVEN ALEXANDER

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How cookies can track you (Simply Explained)

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Have you ever wondered how websites and apps track you on the net? Why do other websites show you advertisements from Amazon about exactly the product you looked at before? How does online tracking work? We explain to you how Google, Facebook and Co track you on the Internet. What is your opinion about online tracking? Write it in the comments... 

 

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Generating sustainable retirement income

 

Many Malaysian are EPF contributors and have FDs as well. "You will never understand how bad the feeling is when you have to break your fixed deposit to cover your living expenses."

ONE of the top financial concerns of retirees is running out of money.

Whether you were an executive earning a reasonable income, or if you are making top dollars as a businessman, the fear is still valid.

For example, Tommy, who left the working world soon after selling his factory to a European multinational corporation. Tommy shared during one of our meetings that he was golfing every week and globe trotting almost every other month.

However, there was a problem that greatly bothered him. He found that he was dipping into his fixed deposit every now and then just to maintain his interesting lifestyle.

“Yap, you will never understand how bad the feeling is when you have to break your fixed deposit to cover your living expenses, ” he said.Combing through all of his finances, we discovered that Tommy’s lackadaisical attitude was to be blamed. He has not been paying enough attention to invest and generate income from the RM12mil nest egg that he had painstakingly accumulated. His investment portfolio was a mess.

Over the years, he invested in a few properties but never really bothered to oversee them. When tenants left, he didn’t make an effort to secure new tenants. In fact, some properties were even sitting vacant and idle. His excuse? He was too busy running the business.

Yap Ming HuiYap Ming Hui

Tommy has also invested in some shares and unit trusts but he seldom monitors and reviews their performances. Imagine his surprise when he went looking for some extra cash but discovered that most of the investments were not making money. Prior to meeting me, he couldn’t decide whether to sell or to keep those underperforming investments.

Consequently, the bulk of Tommy’s wealth is in fixed deposit. The trouble is the interest income from fixed deposit barely covers the impact of inflation. As such, if Tommy continues to spend on his interest income, he will risk having the principal depleted.

Asset rich, income poor

Tommy’s problem is a typical case of “Asset Rich, Income Poor.” His situation is definitely not unique. In fact, I find most self-made millionaires or business owners, typically strong at creating wealth from their business or professional career, but poor at generating income and gain from the created wealth.

For one, all the time spent ensuring their businesses succeed also takes them away from making sure that the wealth created is optimised.Let’s examine Tommy’s assets and see how it measures up (see chart).

The RM6mil in fixed deposit generate approximately 2% interest income. However, notice that the 2% of interest is not sufficient to offset the 4% inflation provision. As a result, there is negative net income coming from Tommy’s fixed deposit asset.

Tommy’s properties are worth RM3mil and only generates RM50,000 in rental income per annum. Nevertheless, this can be considered a net income because inflation will be hedged by capital appreciation (at least 4% per annum) of the properties.

The RM1mil in shares gives a total return of 5%. Factoring 4% inflation, the actual income received from share investment is RM10,000.

Unfortunately, the RM2mil unit trust investments didn’t offer any returns. After inflation provision, his unit trust investment has a net income of RM80,000.

The reality is if nothing is done now, Tommy’s wealth will continue to shrink by RM140,000 a year once inflation is factored to the equation. How does this play out for Tommy? The fact that he needs RM360,000 a year to maintain his current lifestyle will not augur well for him.

So, how can you prevent from ending up in Tommy’s situation?

The optimisation measures

> Remember to review the performance of each of your investment asset classes. In order to generate more income and gains, be proactive in getting rid of poor quality and poor performing investments. Look at each investment and ask yourself, should you keep it or should you sell?

> Consider moving fixed deposit into higher return investment.

Any gains from your fixed deposit would probably be eroded by inflation, especially given the current low interest, which will probably persist for quite some time. After calculating and providing for your emergency fund cash reserves, the balance of your fixed deposit should be invested into other investments that can generate higher return and income to hedge against inflation.

> Diversify the source of retirement income

Even if one investment asset can give you a good income and hedge against inflation, it does not mean that you must bet all or the majority of your wealth in it. For example, property investing. Some investors have found success in it. They were able to generate good capital appreciation and rental income.

As a result, they put a majority, if not all, of their wealth into properties. It may sound logical at first but rental income is not sustainable in the long run. It is subjected to changes, some of which cannot be controlled. Therefore, the best practice is still to diversify your retirement income across different asset classes, like share dividends and capital gains, unit trust gains, bond investment gains, retirement income products and others, so that it is not badly affected by any one impact.

The ability to grow your wealth during retirement years is important. Just because you have stopped working, it does not mean your money should stop working too. The idea behind wealth optimisation is to ensure that you can upkeep your retirement lifestyle and protect your wealth from inflation.

Ideally, one should get a plan done a few years prior to retirement to see how your retirement income would play out. After all, you wouldn’t want to have any unpleasant surprise, like in Tommy’s case. When you have time on your side, you can improve your investing skills and adjust your retirement plan accordingly while still in your active income earning years.

Yap Ming Hui is a licensed financial planner. The views expressed here are the author’s. Any reliance you place on the information https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2021/01/09/generating-sustainable-retirement-incomeshared is therefore strictly at your own risk.

 

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Malaysia Covid-19 pandemic weighed down by over 250 active clusters to record high 3,027 cases

According to Dr Noor Hisham, the Ministry of Health (MOH) is currently studying new strategies which will be submitted to the National Security Council (NSC) for consideration in view of the rise in new infections. - REUTERS

 

 Yesterday, Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah announced 3,027 new cases, the highest-ever daily figure reported since the first few COVID-19 cases were detected in Malaysia in January 2020.

Yesterday’s new infections were made up of 3,021 local transmissions and six imported cases. The local infections involved 1,577 (52.2 percent) Malaysians and 1,444 non-citizens.

Earlier this week, Dr Noor Hisham expressed the government’s concern over the spiralling numbers and said that healthcare facilities were struggling to cope with the steep rise in new cases.

For the record, during the week under review, 2,295 new cases were reported on Saturday, Jan 2; 1,704 (Sunday), 1,741 (Monday), 2,027 (Tuesday), 2,563 (Wednesday and 3,027 (yesterday).

The spike in new cases since October last year also prompted the government to extend the Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO), which was supposed to end on Dec 31, by another three months to March 31.

With its cumulative total of 128,465 COVID-19 cases, Malaysia – which occupied the 71st spot yesterday in the list of 216 countries hit by the pandemic – is now at the 69th spot, overtaking Ethiopia (126,786 cases) and Myanmar (128,178 cases).

China, where the coronavirus was first detected at the end of 2019, stood at the 82nd spot with 87,278 cases, while Malaysia’s neighbour Singapore is at the 88th spot with 58,813 cases.

When Malaysia recorded 22,089 active cases on Monday (Jan 4), Dr Noor Hisham voiced his concern over the nation’s ability to accommodate patients at the various Quarantine and Low-Risk Centres and hospitals gazetted to treat COVID-19 cases as the facilities’ maximum capacity was 23,000.

At his media briefing on Wednesday, he said stricter measures may have to be implemented as a circuit breaker to prevent further spikes in new cases.

According to Dr Noor Hisham, the Ministry of Health (MOH) is currently studying new strategies which will be submitted to the National Security Council (NSC) for consideration in view of the rise in new infections after the ban on interstate and inter-district travel was lifted on Dec 7.

A targeted movement control order is expected to be imposed which will take into consideration COVID-19 cases and clusters in each state and district.

Dr Noor Hisham said MOH was not able to bring down the R-naught (R0) value to 0.5 as projected earlier to flatten the infection curve. The R0 value currently stood at 1.1 and is expected to rise to 1.2 or higher.

In a post on his personal Facebook account yesterday, he said if the R0 value remained at 1.2, daily new cases will reach 3,000 in the second week of February; 5,000 in the second week of April; and 8,000 in the fourth week of May.

The R0 value refers to the infectivity of a virus at the start of an outbreak in a community and indicates the average number of people who can be infected by the virus concerned.

The easing of travel restrictions has reportedly led to the emergence of five clusters, namely Intan, Semanbu and Tembok Mempaga in Pahang; Seragam Chepa in Kelantan; and Ehsan Ibol in Perak.

Apart from that, as of Monday, there were nine clusters related to social activities and gatherings.

Dr Noor Hisham also said that MOH may place asymptomatic and mild cases at quarantine centres now reserved for travellers returning from overseas.

The matter has already been discussed with NSC, he said, adding that the ministry may also collaborate with the National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma) on this matter.

“The war against the COVID-19 pandemic is not over yet. In fact, it is getting tougher.” Dr Noor Hisham’s grim words at the start of the new year must be taken seriously as Malaysia has been struggling with four-figure new case numbers since the third wave of infections erupted towards the end of September 2020.

Another worrying development is the emergence of a new COVID-19 variant in the United Kingdom which has reportedly been detected in other nations such as the United States, Canada, China and Singapore.

Known as B117, the new strain is said to be 70 percent more infectious and can spread easily to others.

South Africa, meanwhile, has identified a new variant of the coronavirus, referred to as 501Y.V2, which is behind 80 to 90 per cent of new cases reported in that country. Nigeria has also reported a new COVID-19 variant.

Workplace clusters, including those involving construction sites, have continued to contribute to new daily cases reported by the nation.

As of now, Malaysia has reported 579 clusters, out of which 316 have ended. Currently, 254 clusters are still active, with 52 of them reporting new cases. The latter include Bukit Pasir cluster (779 cases), Dataran Utas cluster (156) and Beringin cluster (101).

The Bukit Pasir cluster is in Muar, Johor, and was reported on Dec 24. The Dataran Utas cluster is in Petaling district, Selangor, and was announced on Jan 6, while the Beringin cluster, involving the workers of two factories in Penang, was announced on Nov 27.

Among the workplace clusters responsible for a high number of positive cases is the Seri Lanang cluster, which was announced on Dec 25 with 173 cases. On Jan 6, it recorded another 504 cases.

This cluster involves the districts of Klang, Gombak, Kuala Selangor and Petaling in Selangor.

The biggest cluster so far is the Teratai cluster involving the workers of Top Glove factories in Klang. It recorded 6,374 cases. Following this, the government issued a directive for all foreign workers in Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Sabah and Labuan to undergo COVID-19 screening effective Dec 1, 2020.

As of Jan 4, a total of 99,084 foreign workers have been screened with 2,079 of them testing positive for COVID-19.

Over the 24-hour period up to noon yesterday, 2,145 COVID-19 patients were discharged, bringing the total number of recovered cases to 102,723 (80.0 percent of total COVID-19 cases).

Currently, 142 patients are in the intensive care unit with 63 of them requiring respiratory aid.

MOH reported another eight deaths yesterday and Malaysia’s COVID-19 death toll now stood at 521 (0.41 percent of total cases).

During the week under review, nine fatalities were reported on Jan 2, 11 (Jan 3), seven (Monday), eight (Tuesday), four (Wednesday) and eight (yesterday).

Yesterday, Johor recorded the highest number of new cases at 1,103, with 950 cases from existing clusters and 57 from the new Senai Murni cluster.

Selangor reported 706 new cases with 232 from existing clusters, including 64 from the new Damai Pelangi cluster (involving a detention centre in Hulu Selangor district) and Hartamas construction site cluster.

Sabah reported 493 cases with 363 contributed by screenings of close contacts; and Kuala Lumpur 316 of which 136 were from existing clusters including 118 from the new Jalan Ipoh construction site cluster, Rungkup cluster, Desa Setapak cluster and Jalan Jaya cluster.

Penang reported 111 new cases; Kelantan 66; Negeri Sembilan 63; Perak 59; Kedah 30; Pahang 25; Putrajaya 17; Sarawak 14; Melaka 11; Terengganu 10; and Labuan three.

-- BERNAMA 

 

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