An Analysis Of Current Scenario Of COVID-19 In Malaysia

The advent of Coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) has created a new threat in terms of economy and life. Frankly, the adverse effects of COVID-19 can put our life at risk if we are contaminated. The recent promising cases in Malaysia have certainly intensified from day to day, going from bad to worse. The primary factor that causes the raising problem of COVID cases is the absence of cooperation between Malaysian and government. This research aims at visualizing the current situation of COVID-19 and thus raising consciousness among Malaysians to solve this dilemma. To fulfill the objectives, there are two stages of processes need to be performed. Using the dataset from Internet, the first section would use Microsoft Excel to create visualization tools such as a pie chart and a line chart. Next, the second part will scrap the Twitter data to explore how Malaysians are aware of COVID by using “Twint” function in Python software. The finding reveals that current COVID situation in Malaysia is in a severe stage since the chart shows that it has an exponential growth. Moreover, the Twitter activity has indicated that the people are not paying attention to the COVID topic shared by Malaysia Ministry of Healthy (MOH) Consequently, the new positive cases increase dramatically after September 2020 in Malaysia. In conclusion, the people are more concern to the COVID news from MOH during the implementation of MCO and CMCO. The people lose concern when the number of cases dropped or the MCO and CMCO is ended. Keywords—COVID-19; Awareness; Visualization; Statistics


I. INTRODUCTION
Our current world is now experiencing a pandemic caused by a new infectious strain of virus outbreak which known as Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). By 20 January 2021, it has already hit on 96.1 million of people's life and lead to 2.05 million of death in the whole world. COVID-19 is a virus that attack to the human respiratory system and make the victim suffered from breathing in the fresh air. According to World Health Organization (WHO), COVID-19 has the same family as virus of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
Patients who get infected from COVID might experiencing mild to moderate symptoms such as fever, flu, cough, dizzy, loss of taste and difficulties in breathing. In some severe cases especially for the older adults, they have a higher mortality rate compared to the younger people [1]. Researchers claims that a healthy adult has a mortality rate of 2 to 3% whereas the risk of elderly is three times higher [2]. Moreover, diabetics people are found to be more vulnerable in becoming critical with the virus [3].
Typically, the virus is spread from infected patient to healthy person by the respiratory droplets (saliva and nasal mucus). This can be happened when the patient cough and sneeze in the public, causing all the droplets to be transmitted in the air. Moreover, touching the virus-contaminated surface increase the chance of healthy person to get COVID when they touch their face before sanitizing their hands. In order to prevent transmitted from COVID, it is compulsory to wear a surgical face mask, practicing a good personal hygiene and social distance between people. Moreover, usage of sanitizer with 75% of alcohol is strongly encouraged to destroy the virus [4][5] [6]. The figure below shows the poster by Ministry of Health Malaysia on several measures to prevent transmitting virus to other people. To date, [7] discussed that there are only two countries are reported free of Coronavirus in the world, namely Turkmenistan and North Korea. Figure 2 shows the map of COVID-infected areas. mass gatherings in the past two weeks. By 20 January 2021, COVID-19 has already infected 162,000 of people and cause 605 deaths in Malaysia. From Ministry of Health (MOH) Malaysia, the rapid increasing in the number of COVID-19 cases follow a R0 value of 1.1. R0 value is a measurement to determine how widespread the infectious virus can be [8]. Figure 3 shows the Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Removed (SEIR) model which is very useful in forecasting the COVID cases in the months later. it is observed that the estimated infected cases on February 2021 is around 3000 cases daily, 5000 cases daily in the second week of April 2021 and 8000 cases daily in the fourth week of May 2021. If the trend of infected cases is still following the R0 value, the number of patients will increase rapidly as stated in the developed model.
In order to slow down the rate of transmission, preventive measures are vital to be the current strategies. Malaysia government have been implemented a lock down referred as Movement Control Order (MCO), Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO), and Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO). During this duration, people are restricted to travel more than 10 km from their house and most sectors except essentials sectors are forced to close. However, it was observed that the execution cannot stabilize the number of COVID cases happened in Malaysia due to lack of cooperation from people [9] [10]. Therefore, this study aims to visualize the current scenario of COVID cases in Malaysia and hence raise the awareness among Malaysian.

II. METHODS
In this study, we will divide the work into two phrases in order to make readers more understand with the actual situation of COVID pandemic in Malaysia.

First Phase
The first phase of this project is to visualize the current statistic of COVID cases. There are four main steps in achieving the goals namely data collection, data transformation, data visualizing and interpretation and analysis. Figure below shows the steps in first phrase. An online dataset [11] is extracted to be used for the first phrase in this study. The dataset covers data starts from 25 January 2020 until 24 January 2021.

(b) Data transformation
The attributes found in the dataset are "Date", "Total cases". "Total discharged", "Total death", and "ICU". Table I shows the attributes and description found in dataset.  The main core of the study is the visualization of the data obtained. In presenting the data, Microsoft Excel is used to explore the data pattern and trend by developing the line charts.

(d) Interpretation and explanation
After undergoing the three main steps, the last step is interpretation and explanation of the result obtained. Hence, a detailed discussion will be reviewed for each result.

Second Phrase
Next. the second phase in this project aims to visualize the reaction of Malaysian towards Twitter tweets by MOH during the one-year period since the first positive COVID case has been discovered in Malaysia. There are four main steps in achieving the goals namely data collection, data cleaning, data visualizing and interpretation and analysis. Figure below shows the steps in second phrase. The data is collected from Malaysia Ministry of Health (MOH)'s official Twitter. The data will be linked together with Malaysian's awareness towards COVID-19 in Malaysia. Previously, there are researchers link the Twitter user's response to study the emotions faced together with the virus outbreak [12]. Moreover, the researchers also used Twitter data in investigating the people's top concern during COVID pandemic [13].

(b) Data cleaning
Since the data in Twitter is massive, Python software is used to extract the useful information. The Tweets are scraped by using the "Twint" library in Python. Next, the selected attributes used are "date of tweets posted", "replies_count", "retweet_count" and "likes_count" only. The data is grouped by monthly, quarterly, and yearly. Table below shows the attribute name and description for the attribute. This section is similar with the previous section in first phrase. To present the data, Microsoft Excel is used to explore the data pattern and trend by developing the pie-chart and histogram.

(d) Interpretation and explanation
After undergoing the three main steps, the last step is interpretation and explanation of the result obtained. Hence, a detailed discussion will be reviewed for each result.

III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
This section discusses about the result and discussion for phrase 1 and phrase 2.

Phrase 1
Malaysia currently has discovered 183801 total positive cases and 678 total death until 24 January 2021. The data shows that the COVID-19 death rate is only 0.04%. The virus mainly has severely attack on the old people, and those who having the chronic disease. In contrary, the total number of recovered patients who discharge from hospital is 141446 people which occupies 76.96% of total positive cases. Hence, those daily data are transformed into a line plot which shows the relationship between positive cases, discharged cases, death cases and ICU cases. Figure 6 shows the line charts for the positive cases, death cases and ICU cases.  The result for second phrase is focusing on the Twitter users' responses towards the Malaysia MOH's COVID-19 posts. The Tweets activities includes retweets (repost of forward the post), replies (comment on the post) and like by users. Figure 5 shows the chart for total number of replies, retweet and likes. Figure 5 below shows the chart for sum of replies, retweets, and likes in one year. Consequently, we can observe that the number of positive cases rise exponentially after September 2020 (as show in Figure 3). When people pay little attention towards COVID-19 post, they are not aware of the danger surrounding them. Therefore, there is a significant relationship between Malaysian's consciousness towards COVID and the number of positive cases happened in Malaysia.
Based on the three tables, it is observed most Malaysian are concern on the MCO or CMCO, the new cluster and the advice from MOH which asked the people to stay at home and avoid gathering. It is also noticeable that the highest number of retweets, likes or replies are falls on the date when MCO or CMCO is implemented.

IV. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
In conclusion, the concern of Malaysian is tied with the MCO and followed by number of cases. It is observed that when the COVID cases dropped and MCO or CMCO is end, the Malaysian will lose their awareness towards COVID pandemic. However, the decline in the number of COVID cases or the end of MCO or CMCO does not mean the COVID pandemic has gone, it only implies that the scenario is getting slightly better. Hence, this research is done to urge all Malaysians to stay aware of the COVID pandemic, be cooperated with the government and MOH all the time. The war against this virus requires the help from every Malaysian to win.