IT is high time to borrow the inspirational lawan tetap lawan (a fight is a fight) phrase associated with PKR president and Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar for application in the healthcare sphere.
Amid the emergence of the IHU and Flurona strains even as the world is still grappling with the so-called “more in factious but less severe” Omicron COVID-19 variant, Malaysians from all walks of life can ill afford to let their guard down but to strictly adhere to healthcare protocol that is intended to contain the pandemic.
Instead of allowing pettiness to prevail – notably speculation on the vaccination status of Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin which has gone viral on the social media – it would certainly do the country more good if every citizen behave responsibly by not flouting standard operating procedures (SOPs) aimed at combating the spread of COVID-19.
A case in point is how 17 out of 122 individuals who were tested positive for the Omicron variant as of Jan 4 are unvaccinated against COVID-19.
“This is a violation of the SOPs as only those who have been vaccinated should have been allowed to travel overseas,” the Rembau MP pointed out.
All the 17 cases or 14% of those confirmed to be infected with the new variant (involving 10 Malaysian citizens and seven non-citizens) are imported from eight countries – with four from the UK, Nigeria (4), the United Arab Emirates (4) and one case each from Saudi Arabia, the US, Australia, Ghana and Ireland.
According to Khairy, there were 123 new Omicron cases recorded in the country as of yesterday (Jan 6), bringing the cumulative caseload to 245.
From the total, 233 cases are imported while 12 are locally transmitted cases. From the overall Omicron cases reported, a total of 157 cases (64.08%) involve umrah pilgrims. The single largest source of imported cases – Omicron or other variants – is Saudi Arabia.
On this note, FocusM yesterday (Jan 6) questioned the decency of the Government to use public funds to place umrah returnees under surveillance (PUS) and those who tested negative for COVID-19 by the Health Ministry under quarantine in a hotel or public training centre depending on availability of rooms on the day of arrival.
An eye-opener prospect of high concern is that a susceptible-exposed-infected-recovered (SEIR) epidemiological prediction model has projected that Malaysia could record 30,000 daily COVID-19 cases by end-March should the rate of infection (R0) rise to 1.6.
This would eclipse Malaysia’s highest single-day total of 24,599 recorded on Aug 26 last year.
With the UK having seen a R0 as high as 3.0 in its ongoing Omicron wave, Malaysia has no choice but to take action to prevent this from happening in the country.
“As per the simulation, the Health Ministry predicts that should we not take the steps to slow down the spread – such as temporary travel suspension – we will see cases shoot up, starting in January to more than 15,000 cases a day,” cautioned Khairy.
“If our R-nought goes up to 1.6 – to which the UK’s hit 3.0 at its highest peak – cases would go up to more than 30,000 a day.” – Jan 7, 2022
