#kerajaangagal53 – Worst day in the 17-month Covid-19 pandemic, crashing through the 2,000-mark for fatalities and brnging forward the day the half-million mark for cumulative total of Covid-19 cases will be reached by May 22 while United States, the world’s worst nation with most Covid-19 cases, declared it was winning the “war against the virus”
Yesterday was the worst day for Malaysia in the 17-month Covid-19 pandemic, crashing through the 2,000-mark for Covid-19 fatalities and bringing forward the day when the half-million mark for cumulative total of Covid-19 cases will be reached by May 22 while United States, the worst nation with the most Covid-19 cases and fatalities, declared it was winning the “war against the virus”.
Why is the United States “winning the war against Covid-19” while we in Malaysia are losing the war?
For the eighth consecutive day, Malaysia’s daily increase of new Covid-19 cases exceeded that of Indonesia, with Malaysia reporting 6,075 cases while Indonesia reported 4,871 cases yesterday.
Even India has fallen from the peak of 414,433 cases on May 6 to 274,030 on May 19 – a sharp drop of 34% in a matter of a fortnight.
Malaysia’s daily increase of new Covid-19 cases yesterday crashed through two barriers in one go, the 5,000-mark and the 6,000-mark, establishing a new record for daily increase of new Covid-19 cases.
Are we going to fulfil the forecast of the Health Ministry’s revised modelling last Wednesday of more than 8,000 new Covid-19 cases a day by June?
Yesterday in the United States, Covid-19 cases were down in all 50 US states for the first time since the pandemic began, causing the senior White House Covid-19 adviser, Andy Slavitt to declare that America was “winning the war on the virus.”
“And we need you to help us finish the job,” he added.
But the truth is that, despite the drop in cases, the pandemic is far from over. Not around the world, and not in the US. The virus is still killing around 600 people in the US and 12,458 people in the world every day, based on the average numbers for the past week, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
But the unprecedentedly large number of Covid-19 cases and deaths have debunked any claim of success of the strategy in the war against Covid-19 pandemic, as they further confirm the utter failure of the war strategy against the Covid-19 pandemic and the emergency declared on January 12, 2021.
Yesterday, the Finance Minister, Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz asked the people to place their trust in the government managing the RM5 billion funds from National Trust Fund (Kwan) which the government had tapped to cover the Covid-19 vaccination programme.
What Tengku Zafrul and the bloated Cabinet should realise is that the Muhyiddin government had dissipated whatever public trust and confidence the people had in it in the early days of the Sheraton Move conspiracy, which ushered in a backdoor, undemocratic and illegitimate government, because of the Muhyiddin government’s numerous Covid-19 SOP flip-flops and double standards as well as rank abuses of power and kakistocracy.
Otherwise, the wisecracks of a wag “MCO – Making Confusing Orders; CMCO – Continue Making Confusing Orders; EMCO – Even More Confusing Orders; RMCO – Repeatedly Making Confusing Orders” will not have become such a rage on the social media.
What has added insult to injury is that the National Immunisation Plan is so slow and tardy, slower than Indonesia, as after three months of the vaccination rollout, only 2.4% of Malaysians had been fully vaccinated while only 3.9% of Malaysians had received one dose of the vaccine.
The most important thing to win the war against Covid-19 pandemic is to restore the people’s trust and confidence in the strategy in the war against the Covid-19 pandemic as public trust and confidence in the Muhyiddin government has become such a scarce commodity.
I have made two suggestions to deal with the unprecedented deficit in public trust and confidence in Muhyiddin government in the war against Covid-19i pandemic:
Firstly, convene Parliament to establish a parliamentary united front in the war against Covid-19 pandemic where there will be no “no-confidence” motion and to spearhead a “whole-of-society” national mobilisation of Malaysians to restore the country to normalcy; and
Secondly, end all SOP flip-flops and double standards, including an end to all police investigations into the groups of youths who gathered in front of Parliament on
April 30 protesting against the suspension of Parliament and the group of youths who held a protest in Parit Raja, Batu Pahat on May 12 and unfurled a large banner with the words “#kerajaangagal”.
Also end all repression and harassment of journalists, protest leader and various other critics of the government.
Is Muhyiddin capable of a new start in the war against the Covid-19 pandemic?