Support for the Yang di Pertuan Agong convening a Special Parliament on Covid-19 pandemic

Tomorrow is the US Inauguration Day – the first day of Joe Biden as the 46th US President and the final day of Donald Trump as the 45th US President with a disastrous legacy of 410,000 deaths, 25 million Covid-19 cases and 30,000 falsehoods and lies.

More Americans have died in the last year of Trump’s four-year presidency than the eight years of the Vietnam war where some 58,000 Americans perished, or even the four years when the United States joined the Second World War where some 400,000 Americans perished.

Trump had admitted that although he knew in early February last year that he knew the coronavirus was “more deadly than even your strenuous flu”, he continued to compare Covid-19 to the flu.

On February 7, 2020 he said that Covid-19 could dissipate with the arrival of warmer weather, much like the seasonal flu, and that "virus hopefully becomes weaker with warmer weather, and then gone."

On February 15, 2020, the United States had 15 Covid-19 cases and zero deaths.

On 18th January 2021, eleven months later, the United States is the world’s top nation with cumulative total of 24.6 million Covid-19 cases and 408,623 fatalities. On US Inauguration Day on 20th January, United States will be near 25 million cases and 410,000 fatalities.

This is the magnitude of the criminal irresponsibility of the 46th President of the United States, so much so that in Biden’s Inaugural Speech, the new US President will urge Americans to wear masks to fight the Covid-19 pandemic and to pledge vaccination of 100 million Americans in his first Hundred Days.

Let us learn from the lessons from Trump and Trumpism.

Malaysia is presently a poor performer in the Covid-19 pandemic on the world stage jumping 22 rankings among countries with the most cumulative total of Covid-19 cases from No. 83 to No. 61 since Dec. 1, 2020 - even worse than United States of America, Brazil, UK, France, Turkey, Italy and Spain.

On December 1, Malaysia was ranked No. 83 in the world with 65,697 Covid-19 cases but we have deteriorated by leaps and bounds and today, we are ranked No. 61 with 161,740 Covid-19 cases and 605 fatalities. We are likely to be ranked No. 60 today or tomorrow and likely to ranked No. 59 in two or three days’ time.

From Dec. 1 to now, the global total cumulative of Covid-19 cases increased from 65 million Covid-19 cases to 96 million cases, an increase of 1.48 times, but Malaysia increased from 65,697 cases on Dec. 1 to 161,740 cases, an increase of 2.46 times – the worst case among the top 100 nations with the most cumulative total of Covid-19 cases.

For this reason, I support the call for a Special Parliament on the Covid-19 pandemic, which will be in keeping with Section 14(1) (b) the first Emergency Ordinance of 14th January 2021 which states that “the Parliament shall be summoned, prorogued and dissolved on a date as the Yang di Pertuan Agong thinks appropriate”.

Let Parliament set an example for all Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, politics or region to unite for the national cause to save Malaysia from the Covid-19 pandemic.