MP SPEAKS | Yesterday’s daily increase of 4,765 new Covid-19 cases and an all-time high of 39 deaths is the latest proof that the emergency has failed to bring the nine-month-long third Covid-19 wave in Malaysia under control and that Malaysia is fighting a losing battle against the pandemic with deadly variants.
It also validates the warning by the Indonesian government to Indonesians citing Malaysia in the same breath as India as countries which Indonesia should not emulate and to take precautions against Covid-19 during the Hari Raya Aidilfitri holidays.
Malaysia declared an emergency on Jan 12 to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, which had on that day recorded a daily increase of 3,309 new Covid-19 cases, four deaths, and a cumulative total of 141,533 cases.
Yesterday, there was a daily increase of 4,765 new Covid-19 cases, 39 deaths, and a cumulative total of 453,22 cases. If this is not a failure, I do not know what failure is!
Yet we have political leaders like PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang who has come out to champion a failed emergency and even gone so far as to label the critics of the government’s poor performance in mishandling the Covid-19 pandemic as “disruptors”.
This is reminiscent of Hadi’s recent statement which likened those who oppose the emergency as “political extremists worse than religious extremists who had detonated bombs and killed their victims in smaller numbers as compared to the victims of the Covid-19 pandemic which has now spread across the world”.
It is time that all political leaders including Hadi come to their senses and accept that the millions of Malaysians who condemn or dissociate themselves from the government’s mishandling of the pandemic are not “disruptors” or “enemies of Malaysia” but patriotic Malaysians who want the ravages and destruction to life and livelihoods by Covid-19 to end immediately so that life can return to normal like before.
Whether they are Ramadan bazaar operators, SME owners and their workers, or ordinary Malaysians, they are decent, peace-loving Malaysians and not bombers, assassins, or killers who have blood on their hands for being responsible for the 1,761 Covid-19 fatalities in Malaysia or the more than 3.43 million Covid-19 fatalities in the world.
It is irresponsible politicians like former United States president Donald Trump, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and their local counterparts who have blood on their hands for failing to adopt competent, efficient, effective and sensitive measures to bring the pandemic under control.
There are at least three reasons why Indonesia can cite Malaysia as a country to avoid emulating:
1. Malaysia has a higher “cases per million” index than Indonesia - Indonesia's 6,262 to Malaysia’s 13,551.
2. Indonesia has been quite successful in bringing the first Covid-19 wave under control, from the peak daily increase of 14,518 new cases on Jan 30 to 4,608 cases yesterday; while Malaysia’s 4,765 daily increase of new cases yesterday is the highest recorded in over three months and the third-highest recorded daily increase – less than 1,000 cases from the peak reached on Jan 30 which was 5,728 cases.
3. In Indonesia, 3.3 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated, while 5.1 percent of the population has been given one dose while in Malaysia, only 2.2 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated while 3.6 percent of the population has been given one dose.
When will Malaysia wake up?
At yesterday’s rate of daily increase, by June 7, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong’s birthday and end of MCO 3.0 - Malaysia would have worsened from the present ranking of 42nd to 39th among nations in the world with the most cumulative total of Covid-19 cases, overtaking Morocco, Lebanon, and UAE although we will be overtaken by Nepal which is presently experiencing sky-rocketing daily increases of over 9,000 cases.
It is time for all political leaders including Hadi to come to their senses and to focus on a national mobilisation against the pandemic, through an “all-of-government” and “whole-of-society” approach, instead of peddling lies and falsehoods to liken critics of the mishandling of the pandemic as “disruptors”, “killers” or “assassins”!
LIM KIT SIANG is DAP's MP for Iskandar Puteri.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
