By Lim Kit Siang
THE Health Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba, should stop his game of semantics and focus on checking the rise in the daily increase of COVID-19 cases and bring it down to double-digit figures or resign!
He said that the fourth wave of COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia will not happen unless cases involving domestic or local transmission record zero in the current third wave before the number of cases increase sharply the next day.
Going by Adham’s definition of the fourth wave, that it can only occur when the country has succeeded in zeroing cases in the third wave, then there will never be a fourth wave in Malaysia.
Can Adham Baba tell us when in any of the day last year, where we recorded zero new infections last year?
Yesterday’s record of daily increase of 2,331 new COVID-19 cases was the third day in a row since the daily increase of new COVID-19 cases have risen above the 2,000 mark.
I call on Adham to stop his game of semantics because his stance would only increase the concern of Malaysians that the country would face the fourth wave of COVID-19 pandemic before we could bring the third wave and that we have competent and qualified people to end the trauma and catastrophe of the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia.
A strong case could be made that Malaysia would have been spared the second wave and even the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (let alone the fourth wave) if the Sheraton Move conspiracy had not toppled the legitimate, competent and democratic Pakatan Harapan (PH) government at the end of February 2020.
Malaysia has been grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic for more than a year and is the only country in the world which had operated without an effective and credible Minister of Health, who had incapacitated himself with a series of fiascos like “warm water cure for COVID-19”, “500 countries” and “15 states in Malaysia” gaffes.
Now he had excelled himself by claiming that Malaysia will not face a fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic unless the third wave in Malaysia recorded zero case in daily increase first!
How “smart” the Health Minister in fighting the fourth wave – by claiming that it will not happen because the third wave is still here, although it can be worse than in the past.
Is this Adham’s best answer to my call for the reconvening of Parliament to deal with a potential fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia?
No wonder the hashtag #kerajaangagal is such a rage on Twitter!
Malaysians fought against kleptocracy in the 14th General Election, and they must now fight against kakistocracy in the 15th General Election! – April 18, 2021
Lim Kit Siang is the MP for Iskandar Puteri.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
