General

In Malaysia, epidemiologists are saying that the prevalence of the many variants present are largely unknown as the Delta variant continues to be a dominant strain in most countries. We look into why genomic sequencing is crucial and what can be done prevent the spread of Covid-19 variants.

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The Education Ministry has recently announced that it will be carrying out a special one-off recruitment drive to hire 18,702 teachers, in hopes to address the shortage of teachers. Firstly, we look into what it takes to be a good educator, and the ways to ensure that we are producing quality educators. Then, we hear firsthand from a teacher about her experience in the education sector.

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A study in China found that being a content creator and churning out live-streaming video content is the ultimate way to make money. Shawn tells us more.

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The Malaysian government is currently looking at the possibility to loosen restrictions for those who have completed their vaccine doses. We looked into whether this idea would be beneficial, and the guidelines on how it could be implemented.

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The National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) in Malaysia has approved Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for use in children aged 12 years and above. While the Ministry of Health has said that high-risk groups should still continue to be prioritised for vaccination under the National Covid-19 Immunisation Program, it won’t be long before the conversation about jabbing children takes place. Consultant paediatrician Dr Sanjay Woodhull joins us to discuss what parents need to know about the safety of the vaccine for children, and when Malaysia should consider rolling it out to teenagers.

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A few days ago, US President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act and declared that every year moving forward, June the 19th will be a federal holiday. But what exactly is Juneteenth and why is it important, particularly to the African American community? Dr Mohan Ambikaipaker, Associate Professor in Critical Race Theory & Postcolonial Studies, joins us to discuss.

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With Malaysia now in the midst of our fourth lockdown, we have seen increased calls for more aid to be disbursed to the rakyat, especially individuals and families who are from the lower-income group or who have fallen into that group because of the pandemic. Here’s where we often hear the use of the terms “B40”, “M40” and occasionally “T20”, with regards to who needs assistance. But do these categories capture the right demographic who are struggling during the pandemic? What impact will the pandemic have on income inequality in the long-term? We find out from Dato’ Dr Madeline Berma, Fellow from the Academy of Sciences Malaysia

*Correction: Dato' Dr Madeline Berma mentioned that the income threshold for B40 is up to RM4,850 and for M40 is between RM4,851 to  RM 10,970. Based on data from the Department of Statistics Malaysia, the threshold for B40 is below RM4,850 and for M40 is between RM4,850 to RM10,959.

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Many businesses have found difficulties operating over the course of the pandemic, as their workforces are primarily composed of foreign workers. Business owners are calling for both local workers to fill the gaps and the government to extend their labour recalibration programme to foreign workers as well.

The gym and fitness industry has estimated revenue losses of more than RM110 million since the first Movement Control Order (MCO 1.0) in March last year, according to the Malaysian Fitness Coalition.

With the number of administered vaccine doses increasing every week, the country aims to inoculate at least 10% of the population by mid-July. According to Khairy Jamaluddin, this means that 3.2 million people would have completed both doses of any given vaccine by that time.