Has Malaysia lost control over the pandemic's third wave?

 

MP SPEAKS | Malaysia registered the second-highest daily increase of Covid-19 cases yesterday – 1,290 new cases and four deaths to reach a cumulative total of 51,680 Covid-19 cases and 326 deaths.

If Covid-19 infections increase at the daily average of the past week, i.e. 1,127 cases a day, we are likely to overtake China by the end of the year as a country with the more number of Covid-19 infections than them.

Today, China is placed 65th with 86,381 Covid-19 cases, far behind eleven countries which have passed the million mark of Covid-19 cases led by the United States with over 12 million cases, India, second with over nine million cases, Brazil, third with nearly six million cases, France, fourth and Russia, fifth with each country over two million cases.

The global cumulative total for Covid-19 cases has passed the 57 millionth mark while the global cumulative total for fatalities has exceeded 1.36 million lives.

In the early period of the Covid-19 epidemic, when China was the top No. 1 country in the world with the most number of Covid-19 cases, Malaysia was placed 18th in the world for Covid-19 infections.

Malaysia made considerable progress but with the advent of the third wave of the pandemic, we have lagged behind and lost out to several other nations and is now placed No. 84 among countries in the world with 51,680 cases.

If we continue with a four-digit daily increase of Covid-19 infections, we will overtake Singapore in a week and China by the end of the year as a country with more Covid-19 infections.

Have we lost control over the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic?

We must acknowledge that while the Covid-19 pandemic is not as dire as the countries which top the world in the Covid-19 pandemic whether in terms of infections or fatalities (Mexico just reported nearly 100,000 fatalities, while the US suffered more than 258,000 fatalities; Brazil more than 168,000 fatalities and India more than 132,000 fatalities), Malaysia seems to have lost its way in the war against the Covid-19 pandemic.

I had suggested more than six months ago that the government should adopt an “all-of-government” and “whole-of-society” approach in the invisible war against the Covid-19 pandemic, but this advice has fallen on deaf ears

The government has yet to adopt an “all-of-government” and “whole-of-society” approach if the invisible war against the Covid-19 pandemic is going to be successful in Malaysia.

The Malaysian people are prepared to unite and show discipline to win the war against the Covid-19 pandemic but ministers and government leaders are not showing the example.

The Perikatan Nasional government is only interested in using the Covid-19 pandemic to convince the Yang di Pertuan Agong to declare a state of emergency in Malaysia and suspend Parliament and this is why next Thursday will be a D-Day for parliamentary democracy in Malaysia.

There has been no positive response to the opposition overtures of a “confidence-and-supply” agreement to enable the Budget 2021 to be passed to allow an “all-of-government” and “whole-of-society” approach in the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic.

Is it possible before the second reading of the Budget 2021 next Thursday for the Muhyiddin government to show a positive response to the “confidence and supply” proposal so that there could be an “all-of-government” and “whole-of-society” war against the Covid-19 pandemic led by all the 220 MPs in Parliament?

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LIM KIT SIANG is the DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri. - Mkini

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.