DO not lie to the rakyat by painting a rosy picture on the COVID-19 crisis just so you can reopen the economic sectors, said Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM).
“We are shocked by the Government’s decision to loosen restriction under the movement control order (MCO) just so we can move from Phase 2 to Phase 3 of the National Recovery Plan (NRP).
“This is will only create a huge problem to our already overwhelmed public healthcare system,” its secretary general A Sivarajan said, in a statement.
Yesterday, Utusan Online reported Finance Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz as saying that the Government had set a new indicator under the NRP, where proxy data of new admission to hospitals according to categories will be used as a benchmark, not daily cases.
Zafrul, who is also a NRP coordinator, said that the decision was made by the National Security Council (NSC) chaired by Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, after consulting health experts.
Alarmed by the decision, Sivarajan said it was a step backwards, adding it was dangerous for the Government to loosen COVID-19 regulations without proper data backing it.
Nitpicking data is disastrous
Elaborating, the PSM leader noted that in the beginning, the prime minister announced that MCO restrictions would only be relaxed under NRP under three conditions; number of cases, public healthcare capacity (bed usage at ICU) and the number of people having received both vaccine shots.
“But it seems our former banker of a finance minister is bowing to corporate pressure to end MCO and move to Phase 3 and 4 the soonest.
“So now, they only want to use the number of patients under Category 3, 4 and 5, which is obviously lower, to decide on relaxing restrictions. This is very misleading as it would give a false impression that infection level is not that much,” Sivarajan added.
Citing data as of yesterday, Sivarajan said that those suffering under Category 1 was at 48.7%, Category 2 (47.7%), Category 3 (0.9%), Category 4 (0.7%) and Category 5 (2.3%).
“Cumulatively speaking, those under Categories 3,4 and 5 are only at 3.8% of the total number of cases. So, by Tengku Zafrul’s logic, is he going to relax MCO restrictions due to the seemingly low number of cases?
Sivarajan remarked: “This is very misleading. Any relaxation of MCO guideline without scientific backing will increase the number of infections.
Bear in mind that we are already recording over 20,000 daily infections, with death rate above 200.” – Aug 8, 2021.
