The Health Minister, Khairy Jamaluddin should not miss the opportunity to make a full and frank Ministerial statement in Parliament on the high Covid-19 death situation before Dewan Rakyat adjourns this week until the 2022 Budget meeting at the end of the month.
Although the daily reported Covid-19 death numbers have come down to a quarter from 295 deaths (including 53 Brought-in-Dead) on August 30 (the date Khairy took his oath of office as Health Minister) to 74 Covid-19 deaths (including 27 BID), the fatality rate and BID numbers are still unacceptably high and the Health Minister still owes the people of Malaysia a full and frank statement of the high Covid-19 death situation, including the clearing of the backlog of Covid-19 deaths.
The current Parliamentary meeting should not end without Khairy making a full and frank Ministerial statement on the fatality rate so far, and what the Health Ministry is doing to drastically reduce the fatality rate in keeping with an “all-of-nation” policy and strategy.
As the 14-day incubation period of Covid-19 is well past, and it is now over a month since Khairy became Health Minister, Khairy should also explain in Parliament the expected trajectory of the Covid-19 pandemic till the end of the year.
Although Malaysia had come down from the daily peak of 24,599 new Covid-19 cases on 26th August, we are encountering difficulties in flattening the Covid-19 curve to bring the daily new Covid-19 cases to triple-digit numbers before lowering it to double-digit numbers.
After one-and-a-half months, Khairy is still struggling with the daily new Covid-19 cases and unable to bring it down to below 8,000 figures.
Compare this with Indonesia, which reached its daily peak of 56,757 new Covid-19 cases on July 15, but this was brought down to four-figure numbers after 39 days on August 23, when it reported 9,604 new Covid-19 cases, and it has even fallen to three-digit numbers with 922 new Covid-19 cases on Oct.4, 2021.
At the present rate of infection, we are likely to pass the 2.5 million-mark for cumulative total of Covid-19 cases by the end of this month and exceed 3 million cumulative total of Covid-19 cases by Khairy’s first Hundred Days on Dec. 7, 2021.
Khairy should explain how Malaysia can avoid joining 18 other nations with over three million cumulative total of Covid-19 cases on his First Hundred Days on Dec. 7.
(Media Statement by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Gelang Patah on Sunday, 10th October 2021)
