YOURSAY | With indefinite MCO, govt has finally lost the plot

 

YOURSAY | ‘If we are waiting for below 4,000 daily new cases, we are in for the long haul.’

PM: Indefinite Phase one MCO until cases drop below 4k a day

Calculon: If Covid-19 is endemic (which it is), then you need policies to keep things open. MCOs are meant to buy time to get our house in order. And in this, the government has failed spectacularly.

From very early on, China has shown the way out: lock people down but at the same time, increase and expand hospitals and other health services. Also, get the resources in place to do fast contact tracing (apps, enforcement team, etc).

Worse still, while the police are going around issuing fines to lone joggers or a couple of hikers, they have failed to enforce the interdistrict/interstate travel ban. This should be their number one priority. Otherwise, the plan will not work.

The economy cannot wait until the whole country sees cases in certain hotspots drop. If I was in Perlis, with near-zero cases, why should I take "indefinite" lockdown as an acceptable solution?

If there are no plans to even open there, then when are they going to open? November? December? 2026?

Newday: About six weeks ago, Health director-general (DG) Noor Hisham Abdullah recommended to those in power for a complete lockdown. But they did it 50:50, which is to have each-way bet (in horse racing parlance).

We were told to lock down, but with exemptions. Their gamble resulted in workplace clusters increasing almost exponentially. Their gamble has led to an increase in community transmissions. And with no closure of places of worship, specifically mosques, it has led to more clusters.

Many, not just the Health DG, were calling for an MCO 1.0 style lockdown, yet they insisted it would irreversibly damage the economy. What do we have now through this indefinite MCO extension but an irreversibly damaged economy?

My business is not considered essential. I have lost count of the days that we have not been able to operate. All my staff are now laid off. There is no money left, plain and simple, and I do not qualify for any stimulus - as apparently I have too many assets.

We will come back, and hopefully our wonderful laid-off employees as well. When though?

I have absolutely no idea. There lies the sick-to-the-stomach rub - no idea!

If six weeks ago we had a complete lockdown, I would not even be writing this and would be getting on with building the business back up again to pre-Covid-19 levels, confident that with increasing vaccinations, there is a reasonable future.

That is all you had to do, but didn’t - and mainly due to not wanting to annoy your voter base.

That will surely backfire on you. No matter how much of this opaque stimulus may get thrown their way, it is all based on a false economic premise that somehow, they will survive.

You are making us broke; we are becoming ill of mind, body and spirit. Frustration and hatred of you is on the increase and it will not change. You doom us all with decisions made because of politicking rather than genuine care for all.

No gain without pain is the old saying. The pain is now becoming never-ending.

ManOnTheStreet: If we are waiting for below 4,000 daily new cases, we are in for the long haul - months at least. Meanwhile, the rakyat are struggling.

There are many things the government can improve on if they just think of the suffering rakyat. Small, considerate but simple things; we are not asking for the moon.

1. Allow businesses with fully vaccinated people to open without restrictions. This will help the poor makcik and pakcik (aunties and uncles) running the roadside stall.

2. Allow eateries to open till midnight at least. Covid-19 does not infect according to the clock.

3. Allow two people to dine in together for those vaccinated. This is low risk. If not vaccinated, allow just solo dining. This is low risk and will help the struggling eateries.

4. Allow jogging and cycling from 6am to 10pm. Frontliners cannot exercise when they return home from work at 7pm. Solo cycling does not spread the virus.

5. Allow small group sports activities for those vaccinated. Tai chi senior citizen groups can exercise outdoors. Both are low risk.

6. Open the parks for solo users or those senior citizen couples who have been vaccinated. Keep enforcement tight. Outdoor activities have low risk. Mental health is part of health too.

7. Open IT, stationery, handphone and electrical shops at least. We still need to replace or repair our computers and handphones. Not to mention lights, fridges and washing machines when they break down.

8. Don't limit travel according to district and state borders. Just create 15km bubble limits. This is science. You limit travel so the virus does not spread far. Now you cross the road in Selangor and you may walk into another district. People cannot make sense of nonsense like this.

The mindset needs to change from what we cannot allow to what we can allow (activities that are low risk). This is critical for the long haul. These are simple measures that will help people overcome the stress and financial burden of the lockdown.

Guglu: It won’t be an indefinite lockdown. The aggressive vaccination rollout would ensure that the rate of infection will be down sharply soon, as could be seen in other countries.

For comparison, Malaysia is vaccinating more than 200,000 people a day. This is higher than the rate of vaccination in the UK, per population. Within a few months, Malaysia has overtaken Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam in term of the percentage of people being vaccinated.

Malaysia is unfortunate as when we were about to recover, the Delta variant slipped into the country. Indonesia is in worse shape. It is not because we lack discipline, or the government is incompetent, it is just that luck is not on our side. But we must be positive because we are in good hands.

The government is in a difficult position. Whatever the government does, it’s going to be wrong. A Pakatan Harapan government would not have done any better.

My only complaint about the government strategy is that if the factories are so important to the economy of the country, then the factory workers should be vaccinated first. But alas, the government gave the priority to the politicians, whose contribution to the economy is minimal.

OCT: PM’s National Recovery Plan (NRP) is akin to asking my gardener to clear all the leaves in the garden by next week. He won't be able to do it as he has no control over the falling of the leaves - when they will fall and where they will fall.

This is the same as the recovery plan as the pandemic is not under the PM’s control. His ministers don't have the right tool to do the job. Moreover, his ministers are not tested for crisis management.

When there is no ownership of the NRP, the situation won't improve. No deliverables were set. No clear directives.

The PM lives on hope and prays for the best. There is no way the rakyat can see the infection rate drop below 4,000 and 80 percent of the population vaccinated within the next six months.

Now the PM has moved the goalpost again. There must be deliverables that ministers must meet or else be sacked. There is no use if the PM’s objectives remain as objectives when no one is held responsible and accountable for them.

The rakyat can see the ministers are incompetent. There is no recourse for the rakyat to address. This is not the way to manage a crisis.

Milshah: An indefinite prolonged partial lockdown will kill both businesses and rakyat (literally with the virus). You need to have a full-blast lockdown of no more than three weeks.

I thought when the latest lockdown was announced, it would be a full-blast lockdown, but it was not. Factories are open, cars are everywhere. A minister said he closed the front door, but someone opened the back door. Now I understand what he meant.

These last few weeks of lockdown were wasted, as it did not meet its objective of reducing the number of infections.

Just A Malaysian: The PM’s message is gloomy and defeatist. It is an open-ended lockdown with no estimates of when we will reopen. Businesses are unable to plan ahead and may opt to retrench and close rather than playing poker with the daily number.

A more positive way is to link the vaccination schedule to the opening of the economy. We have control over the vaccination rate and this will give some visibility for businesses to plan ahead.

We need to be in control of the situation and not sound like an abah (father) who has failed. - Mkini