Malaysia needs urgently a new policy against Covid-19 pandemic as in the eight days of changeover from the eighth to the ninth Prime Minister from August 13 to yesterday, there were 170,809 Covid-19 cases and 1,745 Covid-19 deaths.

We took more than a year to reach the first 176,180 Covid-19 cases on January 22, 2021 and 17 months to reach the first 2,040 Covid-19 deaths on May 19, 2021, but these figures are now happening in just eight days.

Yesterday, we set a new daily record of 23,563 new Covid-19 cases.

We were the world’s Top 6th country in daily new Covid-19 cases and world’s top 12th country in daily new Covid-19 deaths.

Active cases are on a 54-day climb numbering 257,417 cases while the number of patients needing intensive are or ventilators have remained mostly unchanged for the past three weeks.

The positivity rate is 14.5 percent and this figure has been in the double digits for 30 days continuously.

Time is of the essence and whatever our likes and dislikes, the paramount concern of all Malaysians is to turn the tides of defeat in the 20-month Covid-19 pandemic and to gain control of the invisible and lethal Covid-19 war, end the carnage and the destruction of the livelihoods and the national economy.

When we marked our 63rd National Day last year, we had less than 10,000 Covid-19 cases and less than 130 Covid-19 deaths.

The first thing Malaysians want to know from the new Prime Minister is whether Malaysia is set to mark a grim 64th National Day on August 31 with over 1.7 million Covid-19 cases and over 15,000 Covid-19 deaths, and a grimmer 58th Malaysia Day on Sept. 16 with over two million Covid-19 cases and over 19,000 Covid-19 deaths, and whether we can avert these calamitous figures.

(Media Statement by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, 21st August 2021)