There are at least four reasons why the new Health Minister, Khairy Jamaluddin should not be complacent about the ability to turn the tide of defeat in the 20-month war against the Covid-19 pandemic and ending what is probably the world’s longest Covid wave since last September.

I want Khairy to succeed just as all Malaysians want to see Malaysia win the war against the Covid-19 pandemic and live down our infamy for the past year as one of the worst-performing nations in the war against the Covid-19 pandemic with the unacceptable high number of Covid-19 cases and deaths.

But this is no easy task as testified by the four following events:

Firstly, we are the world’s top No. 8 in daily new Covid-19 cases with 19,378 new Covid-19 cases yesterday after the USA (182,107 new cases), India (42,346), United Kingdom (42,076), Iran (27,621), Brazil (25,348). Turkey (22,857) and Philippines (20,310).

For the 17th consecutive day, we have more daily new Covid-19 cases than Indonesia, which has more than eight times’ Malaysia’s population. In fact, in seven of the past 17 days, Indonesia had less than half of Malaysia’s daily new Covid-19 cases although it has a higher number of Covid-19 deaths.

Secondly, we are the world’s top No. 7 in daily Covid-19 deaths with 330 deaths yesterday, after the USA (1,511), Russia (799), Brazil (749), Indonesia (574), Iran (561) and India (561).

Thirdly, we broke the 1.8 million-mark for cumulative total of Covid-19 cases today, and likely to break the two million mark for Covid-19 cases and the 20,000-mark for Covid-19 deaths before the 58th Malaysia Day anniversary on Sept. 16, 2021.

Fourthly, the decision to drop plans to move RISE, one of Asia’s largest tech conferences, from Hong Kong to Malaysia in 2022 because of the serious coronavirus outbreak in the country. The annual RISE conference brings together CEOs, start-ups and investors and has already been held in Hong Kong for five years.

Khairy’s immediate challenge as the new Health Minister is to bring down the high daily number of Covid-19 cases and deaths.

He does not have 100 days but must show results by the end of the month whether he could institute a new policy, strategy and approach in the war against Covid-19 pandemic that can set Malaysia on a downward curve of daily Covid-19 cases and deaths.

(Media Statement by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, 4th September 2021)