Now I can understand the long delay in posting yesterday’s Covid-19 data on the Worldometer website, which would give among other things, the day’s latest Covid-19 death figures by about 7 pm daily but it was not available yesterday even after some three hours later.

I woke up this morning, like all Malaysians, to utter shock to find that the daily Covid-19 death figure for Malaysia yesterday was an unbelievable figure of 592 deaths, which placed Malaysia as the world’s Top No. 4th country in daily Covid-19 deaths yesterday – after Russia (796 Covid-19 deaths), Mexico (699 deaths) and Brazil (635), beating United States, India and United Kingdom, the world’s top three countries with the most cumulative total of Covid-19 cases.

In fact, with 592 Covid-19 deaths yesterday, Malaysia is now in a worse stage than the United States in its worst period during the Covid-19 pandemic at the end of the Trump presidency in January 2021.

United States has about 10 times the population of Malaysia and by Malaysia’s Covid-19 death data of 592 deaths yesterday, if United States were in Malaysia’s Covid-19 pandemic situation, it should have 5,920 Covid-19 deaths.

Yesterday, the United States recorded 410 Covid-19 deaths, and its worst period of the Covid-19 pandemic was during the last week of Trump presidency, when it reached the peak of 4489 daily Covid-19 deaths on January 12, 2021.

Most fortunately, we are not at the level of the United States in the last week of the Trump presidency, when daily new Covid-19 cases reached its peak in the USA on January 8, 2021 with 304,810 cases while in the last week of the Trump presidency between January 12 -19, cases hovered between 233,077 to 179,038 cases.

Is a daily 592 Covid-19 deaths a new norm for Malaysia?

Are we still to reach a new peak for daily Covid-19 deaths?

For Malaysians who still have doubts, this is a fresh reminder that the Covid-19 pandemic poses an existential threat to Malaysia and Malaysians must place a moratorium on all differences and think of the country more than anything else and to unite and single-mindedly win the losing war against the 21-month Covid-19 pandemic.

We must give Malaysians hope and confidence that Malaysians can subordinate their differences in the next 12 to 18 months to win the losing war against the Covid-19 pandemic and reset the institutional and parliamentary structures for Malaysia to set out again to be a world-class great nation.

When Parliament convenes on Monday, we would be ranked the world’s No. 21 among nations with the most cumulative total of Covid-19 cases as we would have joined 20 other countries with more than two million cumulative total of Covid-19 cases, and neared the 21,000-mark for Covid-19 deaths.

We would also be the World’s Top 21 nations with the most cumulative total of Covid-19 cases with the smallest population.

The new Health Minister, Khairy Jamaluddin, not yet in office for two weeks, must summon a top-level meeting of Malaysians, including experts in the public and private health sectors, to re-strategise how Malaysia can get out of the Covid-19 pandemic which has reached its worst stage after 21 months.

(Media Statement by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday, 12 September 2021)