The Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic on International Students Observing Self Quarantine and Physical Distancing

Abstract

The new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) which spread across the globe has no effective treatment or vaccine and calls for other ways to control its infection are needed. The disease easily spread among people in close contact through cough and/or sneeze. This prompted the World Health Organisation WHO to recommend other ways of controlling the disease to include quarantine, isolation and social distancing where people without the symptoms are distanced from one another. Students may experience loneliness, anxiety, depression, and insomnia due to self-quarantine and other issues like social isolation, perceived dangers, uncertainty in relation to study, physical discomfort, fear of virus infection from others, negative news in the mass media. As such, international students who are far from home were invited as respondents to explore the effect of these control measure on those under self-quarantine. A qualitative online interview protocol was sent to the locations of these students at Sungai Chinchin in Gombak and international student hostel Sabah. To be eligible, respondents should be international students and observing self-quarantine.