Khairy Jamaluddin’s first 100 days as Health Minister is 33 days away, falling on Dec. 7, 2021.
Will Malaysia be able to end the longest 16-month Covid-19 wave in the world since the Sabah state general election last September and reduce daily new Covid-19 cases to triple-digit figures and daily Covid-19 deaths to single digit by Khairy’s first 100 days?
Yesterday, Malaysia recorded 5,201 new Covid-19 cases and 46 Covid-19 deaths, bringing the cumulative totals to 2,486,630 Covid-19 cases and 29,0981 Covid-19 deaths (including 5,887 Brought-in-Dead Covid-19 deaths).
Tracking Malaysia’s Covid-19 statistics, the question uppermost in the mind is whether the trajectory in the reduction of daily new Covid-19 cases is now stalling, as we took 38 days to go below 10,000 daily new cases on 3rd Oct. from the daily peak of 24,599 new cases on 26th August, and we struggled for another 31 days with the lowest 4,626 daily new cases on 1st November.
The question whether in the next 33 days, Malaysia can reduce the daily new Covid-19 cases to triple-digit figure is a very intriguing one.
The same applies to daily Covid-19 deaths, which peaked with 487 daily Covid-19 deaths on 22nd September 2021. It first fell to daily double-digit figures on 4th October when Malaysia recorded 76 Covid-19 deaths. Can Malaysia fall to single-digit daily Covid-19 deaths on Khairy’s first 100 days on Dec. 7?
These questions become relevant when we see the Covid-19 statistics for Indonesia, India and China as compared to Malaysia’s 5,291 daily new Covid-19 cases and 46 daily Covid-19 deaths yesterday.
Indonesia entered into 20th consecutive day with daily new Covid-19 cases in triple-digit numbers and 35th consecutive day with daily Covid-19 deaths in double-digit numbers while India recorded daily 12,945 new Covid-19 cases and daily 455 Covid-19 deaths yesterday, which is three per cent of its daily peak of 414,433 daily new cases on May 6 and nine per cent of its peak of 5,015 daily Covid-19 deaths on May 23, 2021.
If Malaysia, like India, could fall to three per cent of its peak in daily new Covid-19 cases, we should be recording 735 Covid-19 cases a day.
Will this day arrive during Khairy’s first 100 Days as Health Minister?
(Media Statement by DAP MP for Iskandar Puteri Lim Kit Siang in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, 4th November 2021)