#kerajaangagal206 – Malaysia today breaks million-mark and tears the National Recovery Plan into smithereens

Malaysia broke the million-mark for cumulative total of Covid-19 cases, surging a seemingly unstoppable overtaking of other countries, as we are now ranked No. 30 among nations with the most cumulative total of Covid-19 cases when 8 months ago, we were ranked No. 85.

The only other country which is increasing Covid-19 cases by leaps and bounds is Thailand, which was ranked No. 151 at the end of November last year but which is now ranked No. 47, with the exponential increases since April because of the Delta variant. But Thailand has just broke the half-million mark.

We are now six deaths short of breaking the 8,000-mark for cumulative total of Covid-19 deaths – when there were only 551 deaths before the emergency was proclaimed on January 11, 2021.

Let the Prime Minister, Muhyiddin Yassin, be honest for once and admit in Parliament tomorrow that the emergency, the various total lockdowns and the National Recovery Plan were dismal failures and we must make a new start in the battle against Covid-19 pandemic.

The National Recovery Plan which was rushed out on the eve of the Conference of Rulers special meeting on June 16 had been torn into smithereens, as otherwise, we will have a ridiculous situation where the states make the transition from Phase One to Phase Two (and cannot revert back to Phase One even if the states face exponential case increases) while the Malaysian nation cannot make the transition to Phase Two as we cannot fulfil threshold of a daily average of less than 4,000 cases. In fact, with 17,045 cases today, we are more than four times this threshold!

It is clear that the National Recovery Plan is not based on science or facts, nor is it the product of a “whole-of-society” consultation and deliberation.

DAP has long expressed its preparedness to work with the government to restore Malaysia to pre-pandemic times, but we must bring the Covid-19 pandemic under control. We cannot eliminate Covid-19 as we have to live with it. We must distance ourselves from the “total lockdown” mentality, open all businesses and resort to targeted lockdowns only in extreme circumstances, as Malaysia cannot survive if it becomes a nation of food banks.