Corona Virus COVID-19 and Myanmar

Corona Virus COVID-19 and Myanmar

(written on March 24, 2020. Pics from Myanmar COVID-19 Community.)

I was shocked together with everyone in Myanmar yesterday. We have the first 2 confirmed cases announced at 11.45pm, 23 March, 2020. In the ASEAN countries, Laos and Myanmar are the only two countries left while other ASEAN countries and about 192 countries in the world have been affected by the virus. Many people thought that we do not have enough infrastructure and testing system, so there could be hidden cases, but in the same time, we have a (different) government who actually works and any news, especially sensitive information like this, cannot be hidden in the country thanks to Facebook which is enormously used in Myanmar about everyone, and even a normal illness of someone is watched and cautious by the community. When no one can guarantee that there was no Corona Virus in the country, it was pretty positive to keep calm. So the two confirmed cases yesterday makes the public panic and worrisome. The virus has entered into the country together with 2 Myanmar nationals, came back from abroad and both are quarantined. The first one has the fever – recovers in 3 days and the other one doesn’t even show any sickness, symptom or fever, coming only as a carrier with positive COVID-19 results when he is tested only for the reason coming from abroad, makes me wonder if the virus is not used to Myanmar yet and is figuring its way out to adapt the new commute where I wished not to be able to if it’s so.

There are many others who are going to come back in the week. We do not have enough public hospitals to quarantine the mass returns of Myanmar workers abroad, but luckily, we do have meditation centers in the city that comes with separate rooms and beds, which are already made to lessen the physical contacts to improve the peacefulness of mind and concentration. They can be used for quarantines, and the Buddhist monks are offering their centers to use as quarantine places to the government, and one has been already used. There are also private training camps, constructions, and hotels, where their owners are decided to help, so about half of the problem concerning quarantine has solved thanks to this. A private restaurant offers daily meals to those who are quarantined, volunteer shopper groups are formed to deliver groceries to the door to help the public from panic buying and to stay at home, volunteer doctors registered to go to the quarantine places and to Chin state where the first case is reported, other volunteers helped to spray disinfectant in common space, etc, Myanmar’s been trying to fight strong. I wish all the best to Myanmar, I wish all the best to all the countries and people who have been suffering from this pandemic.

Anyway, I would like to add some Burmese words and sentences concerning this topic in this post in case it will be useful for Burmese learners too.

Disease: Yaw Gar (ရောဂါ)

 

Pandemic: Kaba. Kat Yaw Gar (ကမ္ဘာ့ကပ်ရောဂါ)

 

Infect: Kuu Sat Tal (ကူးစက်တယ်)

 

Fever: A Phyarr (အဖျား)

I’m afraid: Kyout Tal (ကြောက်တယ်)

 

I’m lucky/We are lucky: Kan Kaung Tal (ကံကောင်းတယ်)

 

Come Back: Pyan Lar Tal (ပြန်လာတယ်)

 

I want it no more: Htet Ma Phyit. Say Chin Tot Buu (ထပ်မဖြစ်စေချင်တော့ဘူး)

 

Be Healthy: Kyann Mar Par Say/Kyann Mar Aung Nay Naw (ကျန်းမာပါစေ/ ကျန်းမာအောင်နေနော်)

 

Here is a short paragraph using some of the above vocabulary and sentences.

There is a pandemic. Everyone’s afraid. I’m lucky to have no fever. I want it no more (I want this to happen no more). Please stay healthy.

 

Kaba. Kat Yaw Gar Phyit Ja Tal
Luu Time Kyout Ja Tal
Kyama. A Phyarr Ma Shi. Tar Kan Kaung Tal
Sayar Won Tway Pin Pann Tal
Htet Ma Phyit Say Chin Tot Buu
Kyann Mar Aung Nay Naw

(ကမ္ဘာ့ကပ်ရောဂါဖြစ်ကြတယ်။ လူတိုင်းကြောက်ကြတယ်။ ကျွန်မအဖျားမရှိတာ ကံကောင်းတယ်။ ဆရာဝန်တွေပင်ပန်းတယ်။ ထပ်မဖြစ်စေချင်တော့ဘူး။ ကျန်းမာအောင်နေနော်။)

====Please stay healthy.====

Best wishes, Bella

(The images below are retrieved from the shared posts in Myanmar COVID19 Community.)