Malaysia, prepare for the 'war effort' against Covid-19

Let's put it this way, we have never seen this in our lifetime. Not in Malaysia's nationhood since 1957 and 1963. The last time the world saw such chaos was perhaps during World War Two, some 75 years ago.

As a nation, we should approach the Covid-19 pandemic with a mindset of a nation facing a war. Indeed, we are facing a human versus virus war.

In 1941, the United States was shocked by a sudden attack on Pearl Harbour. In response to the crisis, the US focused on bringing people together, mobilising all available resources and ramping up industrial productions for the war effort. Agility, coordination and massive changes to production are paramount in such difficult times.

On the day Pearl Harbour was attacked, the strength of the US Armed Forces only 500,000 personnel. By the end of World War Two, it was able to mobilise eight million men, turned factories into producing ammunition and supplies to support these soldiers and after the war ended, successfully transitioned them back to civilian life through the GI Bill.

These are lessons we can learn in increasing our nation’s resilience and preparedness to face the war against Covid-19.

The Covid-19 crisis will change the way the world functions. Nothing will be the same again. In Malaysia, it will not just end on March 31 when the movement control order (MCO) expires. Even if the order is not extended, we will return to a “new normal”. It will be a very different setting from when we started on March 18.

There might be an extended period of disruption to our lives, for social distancing policies are seen to be effective in fighting this pandemic. Are we prepared for increased temperature checks in buildings, habitual mask-wearing, and other drastic measures which may be necessary? Until a vaccine is proven useful and mass-produced worldwide, we are not out of the woods just yet.

In the meantime, Malaysia faces the danger of “going the Italian way”. If we do not manage the MCO effectively, we could potentially see an exponential growth of cases within days and witness the collapse of our health system within a week.

As a government, as a society and as a nation, we need to prepare ourselves for the worst to be able to win the war against Covid-19. We must be agile enough to ramp up the tempo of everything in the shortest time possible to win the long haul.

Over the next two weeks, we need to ensure that we can control the community spread and that there is no third wave, or at least we can delay the third wave for as long as possible. At the same time, we have to discuss what to do as a society if we do return to some forms of normalcy after March 31.

To achieve these two objectives, we may need to revisit some current assumptions. Firstly, the assumption of only testing those showing symptoms is no longer the best approach. My parliamentary colleague Kelvin Yii is a case in point. He tested positive for Covid-19 despite not displaying symptoms. We now know that measuring a person's temperature will not detect asymptomatic cases, as well as cases who are still in the incubation phase.

We will need to be able to trace those contacts and start conducting tests on those who have contact with patients, whether or not they exhibit symptoms. South Korea has tested more than 250,000 people since the outbreak began and can test 15,000 people a day.

We will need to empower our industries to mass-produce testing kits, and we will need the involvement of medical practitioners in the private healthcare sector to increase our capacity. More human resources are needed to save the lives of those infected and those severely harmed.

Second, the assumption that there is no need to wear masks if one is not having the flu must be challenged. We have to consider the need to mass-produce masks and hand sanitisers for distribution to every corner of society, including rural areas and undocumented foreign workers. We need to be able to mobilise industrial production, as well as community leaders to facilitate such large scale distribution.

Thirdly, we need to drastically increase our hospitals’ capacity. This includes the availability of intensive care unit (ICU) beds, as well as equipment such as ventilators and supplies of protective equipment for medical personnel. We will have to act now before our hospitals and doctors are put under strain, like Italy where many patients had to be sent home. Considering that we only have 450 ventilators in private hospitals on top of those in government facilities, there must be a plan to mobilise private hospitals and businesses in this fight against Covid-19.

Finally, we will rethink security in the community. There is a need to prepare machines to check temperatures at airports, public transport facilities and major buildings when these public hotspots reopen, hopefully after March 31.

Security personnel at these places will need to ensure that they are not carriers themselves, and they will need additional training and capacity building. We may not be able to rely on untrained foreign workers for this as they may not have proficiency in the local language. We may have to deploy Malaysians who will undergo quick training over the next two weeks so that we can secure all such places.

To do the above, we need to get the people and institutions right.

1. We need bipartisan efforts

It is unfortunate that besides battling Covid-19, Malaysia is facing a domestic political crisis and Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin came into power via political manoeuvring. Though this government does not have political legitimacy, Pakatan Harapan stands ready to work with Perikatan Nasional in face of this crisis in the interest of the nation.

The government must show its readiness to work in a bipartisan manner. It will have to start with the PM setting the tone and reaching out to Harapan's top leaders as well as menteri besar or chief ministers from Harapan-administered states, instead of snubbing them from coordination meetings.

The PM has to be prepared to take a statesman approach in order for everyone else to reciprocate.

2. We need a “whole-of-government” approach

The PM has given three nationally televised speeches on Covid-19 in the last seven days. But it cannot just be about the PM. The entire government machinery needs to work in sync. The left hand must know what the right hand is doing. The entire cabinet must prepare and plan to handle the worst-case scenarios. All state governments, regardless of the ruling party, would have to be brought in to work in sync too.

The next time the PM appears on television, it would be good if he operates from the National Operations Management Centre and shares the detailed statistics as well as briefing the people on appropriate measures taken by the entire government across ministries. The people need to know what is going on apart from being told to “duduk di rumah diam diam” (sit quietly at home).

3. We need Malaysians to look out for each other #kitajagakita

Our medical personnel need to have their kids taken care of while they work overtime to save lives. We need the active participation of the citizens in such national crises. We need students to feed their fellow students if they don't have food. We need the young in rural areas to help feed the old whose kids are not staying with them. We need many people to be trained as helpers at hospitals and medical facilities. We need all of them to do so safely without compromising their personal health.

We need to rally the nation to face the crisis together. Active citizenry is needed, beyond staying at home and watching HBO. We cannot leave this to the Health Ministry or the government alone.

4. We need to rope in private hospitals, clinics and businesses

I have the highest respect for the Health Ministry personnel, from the director-general to the nurses. But they cannot do it alone. We need to quickly mobilise the private hospitals, military hospitals and private clinics to play a role. At the least, they have to be explicitly instructed on what they should do and be provided with adequate resources and relevant quick training to prepare for the eventuality of the exponential growth of cases like Italy or a third wave. Most private hospitals are owned by government-linked corporations. They should be mobilised with their GLC owners looking at it as a national service.

5. We need a health security approach

The decision to use the National Security Council (NSC) to coordinate to indicate a security approach is commendable. But NSC has all the while been acting as a secretariat. There is a need for a ministerial rank national security advisor to be appointed at some point, while the health minister should be a semi-permanent member of the NSC special session meetings chaired by the PM until the pandemic ends. The NSC must also consider setting up an advisory panel made up of healthcare professionals and scientists to make sure that the decisions they take are scientifically sound.

All security-related forces such as the police, the armed forces, prison, immigration - and to a lesser extent, customs - must first educate and ensure their personnel do not become victims of Covid-19 before being deployed to ensure the safety of others.

The Malaysian Armed Forces should also be utilised to play a bigger role, under the direction of civilian agencies. The armed forces is a ready tool for the state in times of crisis, and it has always been their secondary role to assist the civilian authorities to secure ground in the new and yet to be defined circumstances and scenarios.

Our response to a crisis should be resilience and preparedness, not panic and fear. With coordination and cooperation from all Malaysians, we can overcome this “war” together.

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LIEW CHIN TONG is the DAP national political education director. - Mkini