COVID-19: Bury petty politics, convene Special Dewan Rakyat session

By Lim Kit Siang

 

THE Emergency proclamation last Tuesday does not bar Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin to convene a Special Dewan Rakyat session immediately to authorise the convening of a National Conference on an “all-of-Government” and “whole-of- society” strategy in the war against COVID-19 pandemic.

This has become imperative following the new grim record in daily increase of new COVID-19 infections breaking the 4,000-mark recently, reaching 4,029 cases and eight fatalities to bring the cumulative total to 155,095 active COVID-19 cases and 594 fatalities.

If the 4,000 four-digit figure is the average of the daily increase of new COVID-19 cases, then we will be breaking the 200,000 mark for total cumulative cases by the fourth week of January.

With that, the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in Malaysia, scheduled to start in February, would not be able to play any role to decide whether Malaysia is set to overtake the Philippines in cumulative total of COVID-19 cases and become the second nation in Asean after Indonesia, with the worst record on the pandemic or whether we join the top 30 or 40 nations in the world with the most cumulative total of COVID-19 cases.

We are ranked No 27 among countries with the highest daily increase of new COVID-19 cases. Among countries with the most cumulative total, we now rank No 63 – making a double jump from yesterday when we were ranked No 65.

If we have an increase of another 4,000 new COVID-19, we will likely be making another double jump to be ranked No 61 among countries in the world with the most cumulative total of COVID-19 cases.

If we average 4,000 daily increase of COVID-19 infections, we will burst into the bracket of the top 57 or 58 countries in the world by the end of the new movement control order (MCO) on January 26, with Malaysia overtaking the Philippines to be among the top 30 or 40 countries with the most cumulative total of COVID-19.

But is this target we want to achieve?

The purpose of a National Conference on an “all-of-Government” and “whole-of-society” strategy and approach, under the auspices of Parliament in the war against COVID-19 pandemic, is to ensure that the trajectory of unprecedented four-digit surge in new cases is broken to return to double- or single-digit daily increase and that we never overtake the Philippines or be among the top 30 or 40 nations in the world with the most cumulative total of COVID-19 cases.

The fact that when MCO was first imposed on March 18, we had 790 COVID-19 cases and two deaths while today we have 155,095 cases and 594 fatalities shows that the national strategy in addressing the pandemic used so far has failed and must be reviewed.

Without malice or finger-pointing, let us own up to the fact that despite calls for an “all-of-Government” and “whole-of-society” strategy and approach to the war against the pandemic, these calls have fallen on deaf fears for the past year.

It would appear that the Executive is inherently incapable of formulating, let alone implementing an “all-of-Government” and “whole-of-society” strategy and approach in the war against COVID-19, and we are not learning from the best lessons and the worst mistakes of other nations.

This was why after the MCO 2.0 announcement and the Proclamation of Emergency, the Malaysian Medical Association president Dr Subramaniam Muniandy issued a statement expressing the forlorn hope that “the Government should instead to go back to the drawing board and, once and for all, for the sake of our beloved country and the rakyat, truly implement a ‘whole-of-society’ and ‘whole-of-Government’ approach”.

The Executive has failed to save Malaysia from COVID-19 and in fact, brought the nation to a health crisis.

This is why there must be an immediate Special Dewan Rakyat session held to save Malaysia from the pandemic, where all political parties and MPs can sink their differences and work together during this crisis.

Let all politicians end the “cloak-and-dagger” politics and let us all meet and reach a new national consensus that the country’s biggest threat is COVID-19, and that there would be no 15th General Election until this threat is overcome.

But there is no reason to panic.

While acknowledging that the COVID-19 situation is bad, we are not in the league of nations where the pandemic has become a catastrophe like the US, where my prediction on Dec 30 last year that the US Inauguration Day on Jan 20 for the new US President Joe Biden, America “would probably have 25 million COVID-19 cases and the world close to 100 million cases” is not far off the mark.

Globally, the cumulative total of COVID-19 cases had almost reached the 95 million-mark, increasing by three-quarter million cases daily, with over two million fatalities.

The US has at present 24.3 million cases, increasing by a quarter million cases daily, with over 400,000 fatalities. India, the second country with the most cumulative total of COVID-19 cases, has over 10.5 million cases and 152,311 fatalities.

Brazil, Russia and the UK are the three countries which have exceeded the three million COVID-19 mark with over 209,000, 65,000 and 88,000 fatalities respectively.

Five countries – France, Turkey, Italy, Spain and Germany – have more than two million cumulative COVID-19 cases, while eight countries have more than a million cumulative cases.

Malaysia should set an objective not to join the present group of 18 countries which have each cumulatively more than a million COVID-19 cases. – Jan 18, 2021

 

Lim Kit Siang is a DAP party adviser and the MP for Iskandar Puteri

The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.

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