Lim Guan Eng is on a mission – to locate Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, who also chairs the special committee on pandemic management.
In a Facebook posting this afternoon, the DAP secretary-general questioned if the government is serious in curbing the latest Covid-19 outbreak due to the Omicron variant.
Lim said the committee, which was to hold weekly meetings, had not convened since Nov 5 last year.
"There have been no meetings for three months.
"This is another failure and dereliction of duties on the part of Ismail Sabri's administration similar to his predecessor Muhyiddin Yassin.
"Hello, Ismail Sabri, where are you? Let us fix a date for the next meeting to discuss how to tackle the Omicron wave," he added.
Lim also published an image of the prime minister with the caption "Hilang (missing)". The image also stated, "help Malaysia locate the chairperson of this special committee".
The Health Ministry today reported that daily cases of Covid-19 have breached the 20,000 mark.
As of last night, the country’s R-number reached 1.51. An R-number of more than 1.00 suggests that the spread of the virus was accelerating.
In September last year, Ismail Sabri said the rebranded special committee on pandemic management would also include representatives from opposition parties.
"This approach is part of our collective effort to involve all stakeholders and ensure the nation's recovery will proceed as planned, in line with the Keluarga Malaysia spirit," he added.
Prior to his ascension, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong had urged the next prime minister to foster bipartisan cooperation.
Shortly after taking office, Ismail Sabri met with top Pakatan Harapan leaders and later inked a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to ensure that the opposition does not threaten his fragile hold on power in exchange for a slew of reforms.
The political climate in Malaysia has also witnessed a series of storms since the start of the pandemic, with the collapse of the Pakatan Harapan government after 22 months in power as well as the rise and fall of Muhyiddin, who holds the Malaysian record for the shortest stint as prime minister.
Several states also had respective polls due to power struggles with Johor to be next on March 23, fuelling concerns that it would worsen the Covid-19 situation.
The southernmost state is in third place with the highest number of cases (2,837) after Selangor (3,779) and Sabah (2,969).
New wave
Meanwhile, Iskandar Puteri MP Lim Kit Siang expressed concern that Covid-19 cases could reach as high as 80,000 cases per day by the time the election is held, as case numbers continue its exponential increase.
“The number of new daily Covid-19 cases has multiplied almost four times in the last two weeks.
“At this exponential rate of increase, will the new daily Covid-19 cases increase four-fold in the next two weeks by the time of the nomination of the Johor state election with the shuddering figure of 80,000 cases a day?
“What is the predicted daily caseload of new Covid-19 cases on polling day on March 12, 2022?” he asked.
He added that the 498 Covid-19 deaths recorded in January and 97 deaths in the first 10 days of February are ‘completely unacceptable’.
He said Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin must urgently implement new strategies to ensure a low mortality rate and to preserve the healthcare system.
“Although the Omicron variant is not as severe and deadly as the earlier Delta variant, the Health Ministry must put in place a new strategy which will ensure that the public health system does not break down as happened before.
“The number of people who have been hospitalised due to Covid-19 is 5,319 as of yesterday, up 97 percent compared to two weeks ago.
“Prime Minister Ismail Sabri should convene an emergency meeting of the cabinet to consider whether an emergency should be declared to stop the Johor state election, considering an emergency was declared on Jan 11 last year when Malaysia had only 2,232 daily new Covid-19 cases and four Covid-19 deaths,” Lim said. - Mkini
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