Yesterday, Jan 13, 2021, saw the start of the movement control order (MCO) reinstated in selected states in Malaysia. Several months back, Malaysia seemed to be winning the war against Covid 19, with the testimony of the decreasing numbers of Covid 19 cases and deaths.

I was, and I am confident, that all Malaysians too were so relieved when Malaysia, through the strategic leadership of our Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and his cabinet ministers and advisories from the highly respected director-general of Health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, Ministry of Health and the National Security Council, had succeeded in containing the rise of Covid cases and deaths in Malaysia.

I had written an article on how Malaysia measured up to this fight against Covid-19 to share Malaysia’s prescription for success, which was published in one of Malaysia’s newspapers.

Furthermore, we were all jubilant when the MCO that was relaxed earlier allowed Malaysians to have a little more freedom to meet relatives, enjoy movies at the cinemas and dine outside with family members and friends after a long period of self-isolation at home following strict SOP rules and guidelines.

Sadly arising from the Sabah state election and the election events, our Covid-19 cases and deaths experienced a sudden great increase, alarming and worrying many of us. Each day we kept glued to the news hoping against hope for these numbers to decrease.

However, these hopes were not to be fulfilled. Instead, we kept receiving increasing alarming figures of covid cases and deaths till the case numbers reached the highest, of above 3000 cases per day. Many Malaysians started to wonder and worry why there are no strict rules being implemented to try to curb this worrying trend.

To the horror of Malaysians, we suddenly learnt of more political turmoils, which we all shudder will ultimately destabilise not only our beloved country but more frighteningly, that it would destabilise and cause great chaos to the current system put in place to fight Covid-19, despite the country having been successful in mitigating this pandemic prior to the Sabah election.

Although, Syukur Alhamdulilah, my family and I are safe from this pandemic, but we feel extremely sad and very sympathetic when we see photos of exhausted frontliners catching some sleep along corridors after days and nights working tirelessly to help Covid-19 patients when we see the news of doctors and nurses with Covid-19 having perished and had not been able to touch nor hug their beloved ones before losing out to this pandemic, as well as the death of an ambulance driver due to his extreme exhaustion of driving Covid-19 patients to the hospital.

Our heart goes to the coronavirus patients and the frontliners

Although we are safe and healthy, thanks to the Almighty, but our heart goes to the coronavirus patients and the frontliners. We are praying for Malaysia not to lose out to this war and hope there will be more recovery and, if possible, no more deaths so that no one will need to lose their loved ones to this pandemic.

But alas, our news is now also filled with political turmoil, of parties making changes to their original pledges, thus causing disruptions in the number of majorities of numbers in political parties, resulting in the current government’s political instability. This truly saddens us as we know that in order to fight the pandemic, all Malaysians, including politicians, must be united.

Thus, I would like to appeal to all Malaysians, especially politicians, to please think of the rakyat’s health and safety first and to unite as a strong front to gather together to think and strategise on how best Malaysia can and must fight this terrible pandemic that is separating loved ones in the most terrible manner, especially imposing the conditions that loved ones cannot touch nor be near their families, even in death.

Respected ministers and deputy ministers, parliamentarians and all, please kindly remember the tremendous sadness and heartaches of families who have lost their loved ones to this terrible pandemic and the current increasing number of Covid-19 cases and deaths sparked by political events in Sabah.

In view of this, I would like to appeal to all respected ministers and deputy ministers, parliamentarians and all to kindly unite together to fight Covid-19 as Team Malaysia for us to win this dreadful war against one of the world’s worst pandemic that has befallen mankind, for rakyat Malaysia and for our beloved country Malaysia.

SHERIFFAH NOOR KHAMSEAH AL-IDID SYED AHMAD IDID is Innovation & Nuclear Advocate at Alumna Imperial College, University of London, United Kingdom.

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