IT is extremely bonkers to think that the country could be moving to Phase 2 of the National Recovery Plan (NRP) by early August.
Under the second phase of the NRP, more economic sectors would be permitted to open and more restrictions would be eased up.
Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s logic for this shift is that more than 10% of the population have already been fully inoculated under the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK).
These developments, he said, gives the impression that the country is on the right track in an effort to achieve herd immunity.
But are we getting ahead of ourselves here?
After all, Prime Minister Tan Sri Mahiaddin Yassin previously mentioned that there are three key conditions that need to be met for the country to move to Phase 2.
The three key threshold value indicators are that the number of daily COVID-19 cases should drop below 4,000 for seven consecutive days; the rate of bed usage in intensive care units should be at a moderate level; and 10% of the population have received two doses of the vaccine.
So far, we have only managed to see positive progress in our vaccination rates, with the country’s daily COVID-19 vaccination rate climbing to fresh high in the recent days.
Why, only a few days ago we have managed to breach the 400,000-mark for the first time with 421,479 COVID-19 vaccine doses being administered.
But is this enough for the country to move into Phase 2 of the NRP? Unlikely.
Don’t forget, we have also broken another record recently, with the number of daily cases breaching the 11,000 mark two days in a row, with more than half of the new cases from the Klang Valley area.
We must also take into consideration the fact that we have a bigger and deadlier threat now in the form of the Delta variant.
In fact, Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah warned on Tuesday July 13 that the number of new cases could increase over the next two weeks as the highly infectious Delta variant, which can be easily transmitted by air, has been detected in almost every state.
With this in mind, it simply makes no sense that Ismail Sabri in a hurry to move the country into Phase 2 of the NRP. Why the sudden urgency to ease more restrictions, especially at a time when the number of daily cases is at an all-time high?
Rather than lowering our guards so soon, we need to be more vigilant now than ever, and that is the only way that we can finally flatten the COVID-19 curve. – July 15, 2021
