LETTER | Viruses, unknown to many, differ from bacteria. The former seeks a "host" to grow and divide their cells exponentially.

In the case of Sars-Cov II - the scientific name of the virus - which leads to the potentially deadly respiratory sickness, now known globally as Covid-19, there are ways to manage the proliferation of the pandemic.

But the key to understanding from Covid-19 can be stopped requires a causal and sequential understanding of a series of chain reaction.

First of foremost, while the corrosive effects of Covid-19, is to erode the confidence of everyone in the government, opposition, even one's neighbours, creating the near equivalent of what 18th classical French sociologist Emile Durkheim called "anomie", or more precisely a value-less society, there are ways to stop such sheer coldness. In that, the key is to either get oneself tested for Sars-Cov II, or, follow the national guidelines on how not to contract it: when one is not the problem, one is the solution.

Second, beyond publicly medically approved tests, coupled with self-isolation and discipline, that comes together with it, a person must continue to be honest about his or where previous activities, to allow smooth and accurate contact tracing.

Without contact tracing, the government which is at the centre of combatting this pandemic, would not know which areas or clusters of people had been exposed to the strains of the outbreak.

When cases began to spike in the second wave on March 15, those who came forward ought to be applauded too for confessing they were a part of the tabligh joint gathering of 15,000 people in the mosque of Seri Petaling.

While the outbreak from here, can trigger a national calamity, as witnessed by South Korea, where a mere 17 cases in the early part of February 2020 shot up to more than 5000 cases in three weeks, sheer hatred of the Tabligh movement cannot draw the followers to seek the necessary tests.

As Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of World Health Organisation (WHO), affirmed, "One cannot defeat Covid-19 by being blind. The key is to test, test, and test," as reported by CNN International on March 16.

Third, Malaysians should understand that while the epicentre of the global pandemic is now European Union, not Asia, as the cases in the latter, at least in China, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Japan, have either stabilised or climbed down, the quest for a vaccine may take one year to 18 months. Thus, one should expect a worst-case scenario across the world; especially the United States, the remaining economic engine of growth, that has yet to fall off the cliff yet.

In sum, Sars-Cov II too has been around for close to sixty years. Their hosts have always been some seven species of animals. However, as a zoonotic disease, Sars-Cov II has made a "jump" to the human host, by some investigative reporting by South China Morning Post in November 2019. Now why didn't China report the first outbreak between November 2019 and the shut down of Wuhan city in Hubei on January 22 2020, will for now remain a mystery.

But research on pandemic like virus is an international collaboration, which must be ideally over-seen by the WHO. Otherwise, the likes of Institute of Virology in Wuhan, which lies 30km from the alleged Huinan Seafood Wet Market, could not have got a level 4 biohazard clearance both by China and WHO.

The key, therefore, is not to blame who is wrong or what is what, especially arguments with geographical or racial tint such as Wuhan Virus or Yellow Peril.

One must remember that 2019 was itself the centennial of Spanish flu, which killed more than 50 million people world wide. One of the warnings happened to originate from me due to my former experience in studying pandemic with Japanese scientists and international academics (See source here).

As long as we go back to the basic, the silver lining will always be there amidst the current gloom and doom. Meanwhile, Malaysia has to focus on encouraging more people to get tested; and such services can be done in the form of procuring more testing kits locally or abroad, invariably, creating an easy drive through, such as in South Korea, to allow people to get their deep swabs.

The same results can be witnessed in the designated hospitals in Hong Kong, where the status of one's Sars-Cov II status can be found out in four hours; perhaps even less than 30 minutes with 99 percent accuracy (which Singapore is experimenting with a domestically produced kit which cannot be mass industrialised yet). 

If these developments are taken into account, the likelihood of Malaysia getting a grip of the situation is strong; without Malaysia being the next epicentre like Italy and Spain will be the new norm. Malaysia needs to understand the basics to understand how pandemic can be stopped. Panic and paranoia are not the way.

PHAR KIM BENG is president/chairperson of Echo Strategic Insight.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.