The Achilles Heel of our Covid-19 battle

The PSM was really happy to hear from the Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah yesterday (April 17) that the number of new cases identified in the previous 24-hour period had dropped to 69.

This is the second time that the number of new cases has dropped below 100 since March 14. I am sure that many Malaysians were happy to hear this.

We have all been waiting for the numbers to come down so that the Movement Control Order (MCO) can be relaxed and we can go back to normalcy.

The Health Ministry must be commended for the good job they have done in providing the professional input that enabled the National Security Council (NSC) to make the correct, if difficult decisions to launch the MCO.

The Malaysian government’s decision to provide income support for eight million families was a bold but very necessary step to ensure that people would not be deprived of food during the MCO period.

So too was the government’s decisions to declare a moratorium on loans and provide various forms of support for small and medium businesses (SMEs) as these SMEs provide employment to almost 60 percent of our workforce.

The nation will need the SMEs to play their role in restarting the economy when the MCO can be safely relaxed.

The people of Malaysia who, on the whole complied with the restrictions of the MCO, also played a key role in bending the new cases curve downwards.

But we should be careful about patting ourselves on the back too early.

There is a major “Archilles Heel” in our Covid control programme that has yet not been addressed comprehensively – the six million or so migrant workers in our country, two-thirds of who are undocumented, and the majority of whom live in crowded unsanitary conditions.

The PSM has been advocating since March 19 that the government reaches out to this community and win their trust as our main weapons for containing Covid-19 – case identification, contact tracing, isolation of cases and contacts – will be resisted by the migrant community because they will be afraid that, after the two weeks of quarantine in a government facility, they might be charged for immigration violations, flogged, jailed and/or deported.

If we do not win their trust and cooperation, our entire control program will blow up in our faces when - nor if - the epidemic spreads to the migrant population. We can see how that is unfolding now in Singapore.

In the memorandum addressed to the prime minister on March 19, the Peoples Health Forum (of which the PSM is a founding member) recommended two policies namely, free treatment of all migrant workers coming to government clinics and hospitals for the next one year, and a moratorium on immigration offences for a similar period of time - i.e. they will not be arrested and charged for not having proper documents.

There was no response to this memorandum. The PSM then wrote to the prime minister, health minister, and other members of the NSC on April 2, reiterating these two recommendations.

Again there has been no indication that this issue is being attended to.

Of course, the PSM does not have any locus standi to expect that the prime minister or the NSC responds formally to our suggestions, but we do seriously hope that the government is taking steps to ensure the huge uptick of new cases in Singapore arising from spread of the infection to the migrant population does not occur here as well.

If it does, it will just make it that much harder to relax the MCO and restart the economy.

The other issue that the PSM would like to flag is that some of the factories that have been allowed to resume production are not adhering to precautions.

Workers have been complaining to us that their management is not checking temperatures of workers daily, not providing safety masks, or is not ensuring physical distancing in the work place.

All these measures cost money and businesses, left to themselves, will try to save costs.

The NSC needs to ensure that the relevant agencies – the Labour Departments, local councils or health departments – open hotlines for workers to call in and complain (anonymously) as well as conduct spot checks and issue stop work orders if there is failure to comply with safety precautions.

We cannot afford to take our eyes off the ball.

Finally to the people of Malaysia, the PSM would like to say – hang in there, and observe the MCO restrictions.

We are winning the battle but the war is going to last for at least a year.

Even when the MCO is lifted it won’t be back to normal, for the risk of an uptick in infections will always be there and these flares will have to be dampened down quickly by increasing physical distancing in the districts affected.

We will have to operate in a different mode until a safe and effective vaccine is found.

But so far, we have done quite well as a nation and have avoided the horrendous death tolls that some other countries are experiencing.

If we continue to ensure that no one is deprived of basic necessities because of the disruptions caused by this epidemic, we will emerge from this challenge stronger and more united as a nation.

Stay strong and look out for one another.

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Dr JEYAKUMAR DEVARAJ is a respitory physician and the PSM chairperson. He is also the former Sungai Siput MP. - Mkini