Malaysia is likely to overtake Pakistan to be ranked No. 30 among countries with the most cumulative total of Covid-19 cases and to break the million-mark for Covid-19 cases when Parliament convenes on Monday.
This is a mark of the severity and magnitude of the Covid-19 pandemic in Malaysia, after being classed among countries which are the worst performers in the Covid-19 pandemic after 18 months – despite a six-month emergency, the numerous lockdowns and the National Recovery Plan to bring the Covid-19 pandemic under control.
The Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has apologised for his government’s bungling of its Covid-19 vaccine rollout. Would the Malaysian Prime Minister, Muhyiddin Yassin do the same as the country is faced with the “pandemic of the unvaccinated”?
After five months of the national vaccination rollout, we have only achieved 15% of the population who have completed the two-dose vaccination.
If the Prime Minister’s new target to vaccinate all adults by October is achieved, we face more than two months of a rampaging Covid-19 pandemic, with the Delta variant paralysing health systems in South-East Asia, especially Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar.
On the verge of joining the Club of 31 nations with cumulative total of more than a million Covid-19 cases, we must be prepared to re-evaluate where we have gone wrong in the war against the Covid-19 pandemic and a revamp of the communications policy as in the age of social media, it is not possible to hide the truth from the public.
Government attempts to deny heart-wrenching reports and videos of public hospitals in the Klang Valley on breaking-point can only compound the deficit of public trust and confidence on official accounts, when it is paramount importance to regain public trust and confidence with a policy of truth and transparency.
The government should not deny that Malaysia is facing a public health crisis when the Selayang Hospital has been converted from a hybrid into a third full Covid-19 hospital after Sungai Buloh Hospital and Ampang Hospital because of the staggeringly high rate of Covid-19 infections.
If Wuhan in China can build a make-shift hospital with 1,000 beds in 10 days early last year, why can’t Malaysia build make-shift hospitals in the Klang Valley to meet the spiralling need for emergency hospital facilities in the last 18 months or in the last six months of the emergency?
As I had warned more than a week ago, the Muhyiddin government must ensure that the oxygen crisis that recently paralysed India does not come to Malaysia.
This is the time for a new policy to combat the Covid-19 pandemic and not to repeat the mistakes of the past 18 months.
Is the Parliament meeting on Monday to mark a new policy and strategy to combat Covid-19 pandemic or is it to repeat the mistakes of the past?
(Media Statement (2) by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Kuala Lumpur on Friday, 23rd July , 2021)