Call on NSC to minimise adverse economic impact of lockdowns and adopt a more flexible approach to lift early the four-week CMCO imposed on almost all states until Dec. 6 in states where there is no red zone or few Covid-19 cases

The National Security Council should minimise the adverse economic impact of lockdowns and should adopt a more flexible approach to lift early the four-week conditional movement control order (CMCO) imposed on almost all states until Dec. 6 in states where there is no red zone or report few Covid-19 cases.

There are today at least three states , i.e. Johor, Malacca and Kedah which have no red zone or district with more than 40 Covid-19 cases, although they had a red zone district each when the CMCO was announced. The NSC should consider lifting the CMCO in these three states.

As it is generally agreed that it will take almost a year to contain the Covid-19 epidemic, which may even run into 2022, the NSC should opt for a more flexible approach to allow Malaysians to live with the coronoavirus and to strike a right and proper balance between saving lives and livelihoods without killing hopes of a national economic recovery.

The question posed by the Academy of Medicine of Malaysia (AMM) and a distinguished gallery of Malaysian medical experts, asking the NSC to lift the CMCO and adopt a “transparent middle path” over the CMCO has not been answered.

The AMM pointed out that in Peninsular Malaysia, only Negeri Sembilan has a higher Covid-19 case incidence rate per 100,000 population than the national rate.

AMN is puzzled by the government’s decision to impose a blanket CMCO and it asked the government to explain the science behind the decision.

It said: “In examining the available evidence, we urge the government to lift the CMCO and adopt a transparent ‘middle path’”.

It said that based on the 14-day incidence rate from 21 October to 3 November 2020, many states should not need a stricter MCO. Only Negeri Sembilan has a higher incidence rate than the national rate while Kedah, Perak, Terengganu, Johor, and Melaka are at relatively low levels.

It is most unfortunate that Parliament had been used to attack the professionalism and dedication of the front-liners and to distract attention from the fact that it was the opportunistic and unprincipled political leaders in the Perikatan Nasional government who caused the rampage of Covid-19 epidemic in Sabah because of their greed to capture Sabah State Government from Warisan Plus coalition.