MP SPEAKS | On April 24, 2020, I suggested the establishment of a Covid-19 Pandemic Study Centre to learn from the successes and mistakes of other nations so that we can be effective and efficient in our war against the Covid-19 pandemic.

But like the many constructive suggestions that I had made last year on how best to fight the pandemic, it fell on deaf ears.

I had said that although Malaysia had done comparatively well in the international arena in the war against Covid-19, having fallen from the top 18th country in the world to No. 43 in terms of the cumulative total of Covid-19 cases and the ranking of 33 to 49 in terms Covid-19 deaths. We had still to learn from the successes and mistakes of other nations.

We were once some 50 positions behind China, the country where the pandemic started and which had a population 40 times that of Malaysia, in a cumulative total of Covid-19 cases. Now, we are 10 rankings ahead of China, as we are ranked No. 72 among countries in the world with the most cumulative total of 117,373 cases while China is ranked 82 with 87,093 cases.

The question Malaysians are entitled to ask is - why we are not learning the best lessons from the top ten countries in the Bloomberg Covid-19 Resilience Ranking?...