AFTER yesterday’s daily COVID-19 report, despair indeed hangs heavy in the air.
The new high in the number of daily infections isn’t something that you can easily dismiss or forget since the new record confirms what Malaysians have known for a long time: that the COVID-19 situation is getting worse despite being under…ahem, ‘full lockdown’ since June 1.
Just when we thought that things couldn’t possibly get any worse, several days ago when the number of new cases breached the 11,000 mark, we were proven wrong in the worst way possible.
Yesterday (July 15), the country recorded 13,215 new cases, with the Klang Valley – namely Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya – making up more than half of it.
If we keep this up, surely it wouldn’t be long before the country breaches the one million COVID-19 cases mark, cumulatively.
Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has attributed the recent surge in the Klang Valley to the spread of the extremely infectious Delta variant of the virus.
He also explained that the healthcare system was congested because each serious patient spent an average of two to three weeks in the hospital.
He even tried to allay the people’s concerns by saying that out of 13,215 new cases, only 4% of the cases (513 cases) fell under Categories 3, 4, and 5.
COVID-19 patients are grouped into categories based on the severity of their symptoms, with Category 1 indicating those without symptoms and Category 2 being those who are symptomatic but without any lung infections.
Category 3 entails symptomatic patients with lung infections, while Category 4 is for those needing oxygen supplementation and Category 5 is for critical patients with multiple organ complications.
But does the fact that only 4% of the cases fall under the last three categories make any real difference? Categories 1 and 2 patients are still carriers with the potential to spread the COVID-19 virus, aren’t they?
The people are tired, cheesed off and on the verge of giving up. Tens of thousands of Malaysians have lost their loved ones, their homes, their incomes, and for what?
The alarm bells are ringing louder than ever now that the number of daily cases have breached the 11,000 mark, and all of a sudden, everybody is scrambling for resources to save the Klang Valley. Alas, the damage has already been done.
How far more do we need to go down this doomed path for the powers that be to realise that the current strategy does not work anymore?
How much longer do we need to beat this dead horse with the expectation of a positive outcome?
What does the future hold for us, one year from now? Nobody knows. But what we do know is that there is an urgent need for the Government to do more – to do better – in order to beat the pandemic.
Test more, vaccinate more, and please, do something to alleviate the shortage of manpower, beds, oxygen supply and refrigeration for the dead in hospitals.
Do anything but sit and twiddle your thumbs or worse, take holidays abroad and giving stupid excuses like having to send your children to school.
At the end of the day, this is all that the rakyat can ask for. – July 16, 2021
