P Gunasegaram
CONSIDERING that the evidence is of a spike in cases when lockdowns are relaxed, the government should have been much more careful about lifting restrictions under the movement control order (MCO).
This is especially so since evidence indicates that when restrictions are removed even in very disciplined societies such as South Korea and Japan, infection cases increased. In some instances, this has required lockdowns to be effectively reimposed.
If we learnt from these lessons, it is imperative that we first check carefully whether we are prepared to lift the lockdown and that all conditions are in place to do so and still keep the pandemic reasonably under control.
One must remember that the effects of relaxing movement now will be known only two weeks later at least, because that is how long before the disease manifests itself, and probably a week or two after that for the full impact to materialise.
So it will be much more prudent to give enough time for all sectors of the economy to adapt to the new normal and ensure that they are fully able to meet all conditions and standard operating procedures (SOPs) before lifting the restriction under the misnomer “conditional MCO”.
Yes, it is conditional, but it is physically impossible to ensure everyone complies. You need to give businesses more time to prepare for this, especially the smaller businesses – the small and medium enterprises or SMEs which employ about 70% of workers.
This is where infection is most likely – the most number of people are there and the ones most likely to ignore SOPs. They include all sorts of businesses – food and beverage, services, shops, workplaces – virtually all can reopen except for those that involve close contact and mass gatherings.
Are businesses ready to implement the required SOPs and guidelines to reopen? Can enforcement be done? On both counts, the answer has to be no – not yet, not in three public holidays.
You are talking about personal space of one metre radius – that is the SOP. Most offices cannot meet this requirement, and until this can be satisfied through staggered work, the MCO for them should not be lifted.
Are they likely to adhere to SOPs first before reopening? Unlikely, because they have been allowed to open from today. They will make haste to reopen, even if they are unprepared because they are losing money and short on cash. Many don’t even take Covid-19 seriously.
Enforcement is tough – just SMEs alone amount to nearly one million – there is no way of doing that. You have to depend on the SMEs to police themselves from a position of knowledge – which means educating them and making them realise the importance of the SOPs and making them clear and simple to follow.
It is important to set this up first. I simply cannot understand this haste. So announce the SOPs first, give them one week to do it, do some random inspection, then if everything is ok, you go ahead with the conditional MCO. But better still, do it in stages such as the safe zones first.
Instead, Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin strangely saw it fit to announce the lifting of the MCO on a public holiday, May 1. This is followed by a Saturday and Sunday when most people don’t work, and then is followed by going back to work on Monday. Where is there time to set anything up?
Considering that the effects will be known only at least two weeks later – and probably only in three weeks – a phased lifting of controls would have been better, starting from the safe zones. This is what Ireland is doing stage by stage at three-week intervals up to August.
World Health Organisation or WHO guidelines require six conditions to be met before lifting of restrictions. Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah is straightforward about what is required to lift the MCO – six conditions of which three have already been satisfied, he said recently. The Academy of Medicine Malaysia concurs with him.
The six are border control, movement control, readiness of the healthcare system, protection of high-risk groups, readiness of Malaysians to adapt to the new normal, and deployment of preventative measures in the community. They remain the bare bones of an exit strategy towards lifting the MCO. There are a lot of details to consider before all are satisfied.
Dr Noor Hisham had also mentioned that Malaysia already meets the first three criteria. Border control involves stopping illegal immigrants and quarantining returning Malaysians, both of which could be possible transmission vectors. Movement control has seen a high rate of adherence among Malaysians, with an average of over 90% while medical facilities are not under stress with 30% utilisation.
The PM however says inexplicably that all six conditions have been met in a matter of days, but that is not so. Where is the protection against the vulnerable group, over 60 years of age and those who are ill? Nothing’s been done – there have only been exhortations.
While Dr Noor Hisham advises those over 60 to stay at home, that is not likely to be followed – many people are waiting to get out and about. So requirements and precautions have to be spelt out and the public needs to understand social distancing within households.
Many still don’t realise the seriousness of this and are taking it lightly, leading to doubts that the communities have been sufficiently engaged and are prepared to stick with the SOPs.
Now there is lifting of travel restrictions across states by May 7, even before an assessment can be made of the impact of lifting the MCO. This is likely to spread infection to other states from KL/Klang Valley, the epicentre of the infection.
Meanwhile, there is already resistance to the partial lifting of restrictions from certain states like Selangor, Penang, Kedah and Sarawak. The states are genuinely afraid that there will be a pick-up after this relaxation. The government has not given sufficient reasons for this beyond economics, of losing RM2.4 bil a day.
That is not even a loss for the government but a loss in gross domestic product, the sum of goods and services produced in a year. This is only to be expected during times like this and is not so severe if it can be reversed in a phased, orderly manner, which does not jeopardise the future of the country both in terms of health and the economy.
Legally, there have been arguments that orders issued under the National Security Council Act are not valid when there is no threat to the security of the country and only those under Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 (PCIDA) are. Thus, states can ignore the federal orders as they don’t have the force of law.
One more thing – since businesses can open, it is rather incongruous that Parliament can only sit for one day on May 18. Surely we must have the capacity to hold Parliament, virtual or otherwise, and continue with normal business. This is political – abusing powers to delay Parliament – and is simply unacceptable.
That just adds another factor to the long list that does not elicit confidence for the things that the government is doing in terms of reviving the economy while keeping Covid-19 in check.
We have been doing a pretty good job of keeping the pandemic under control for so long. Why are we risking all that by a premature and ill-considered decision to effectively lift the MCO even before most businesses and people are prepared?
That is folly of the highest order! This is one time that one hopes the government will do a U-turn – a necessary one. – May 4, 2020
P Gunasegaram is editor of Focus Malaysia.
