WITH Malaysia recording 592 COVID-19 deaths yesterday, Iskandar Puteri MP Lim Kit Siang urged Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin to convene an emergency meeting with experts to come up with new strategies to combat the pandemic.
“Now I understand why the Health Ministry (MOH) took a long time to announce COVID-19 death tally yesterday.
“Anyway, I call upon Khairy to have an urgent meeting with top experts, from public and private healthcare services, to restrategise on how Malaysia can contain COVID-19 which has reached its worst stage after 21 months,” he said, in a statement.
In yesterday’s statement, MOH director general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah oddly did not divulge details on the death tally.
It was only later on Malaysians got know that the nation recorded its highest COVID-19 death to date, at 592.
Elaborating, Lim said that Malaysia now ranks in the top four countries, in terms of death tally, due to COVID-19, after Russia (796), Mexico (699) and Brazil (635).
He added that with over 500 deaths, Malaysia is now at a worse stage than the US, during the latter’s worst period in January nearing the end of Donald Trump’s presidency.
“This is a fresh reminder that COVID-19 poses an existential threat to the people. Therefore, I urge everyone to set aside differences and unite against our common enemy, which is the pandemic.
“Let us focus on containing COVID-19 in the next 12 to 19 months. At the same time, let’s embark on reforms on our public institutions such as the Parliament to make us a great nation,” the DAP adviser added. – Sept 12, 2021.
