#kerajaangagal54 – All Johore Members of Parliament and State Assembly persons should support the Johore Sultan’s call for a meeting of Johore lawmakers on Covid-19 pandemic in Johore and have the meeting before the end of the month
All Johore Members of Parliament and State Assembly persons should support the Johore Sultan’s call for a meeting of Johore lawmakers on Covid-19 pandemic in Johore and have the meeting before the end of the month.
The Johore Sultan is aware that the Johor legislative assembly cannot be convened, but a meeting can be held in other forms and chaired by the menteri besar.
He said: “Through this discussion, all MPs and state assemblypersons can air their views on ways to stop the spread of Covid-19 and solve problems faced by Bangsa Johor.”
I suggest that this meeting be opened by the Johore Sultan and that it be held by the end of this month, for the Covid-19 pandemic is deteriorating very rapidly, and if the Health Ministry’s revised modelling is right, then we will be seeing more than 8,000 daily increases of new Covid-19 cases by June.
For nine consecutive days, Malaysia’s daily increase of new Covid-19 cases has exceeded that of Indonesia, justifying the snide remark of the Indonesian authorities that Malaysia and India are nations which should not be emulated as they had mishandled the Covid-19 pandemic!
I said this morning that “Yesterday was the worst day for Malaysia in the 17-month Covid-19 pandemic”, with Malaysia’s daily increase of new Covid-19 cases breaking two barriers in one go, the 5,000-mark and the 6,000-mark, as well as establishing a new record for daily increase of new Covid-19 cases.
Today we broke yesterday’s record for daily increase of new Covid-19 cases, as well as crashed through the 2,000 mark for Covid-19 deaths as the total Covid-19 fatalities now stand at 2040 – a horrifying figure.
If the present Covid-19 situation continues, we will reach the half-million mark in cumulative total of Covid-19 cases on Saturday, May 22, 2021.
Malaysia is witnessing an unprecedented surge of Covid-19 cases. In contrast, in the United States, the worst nation in the world with the most Covid-19 cases and fatalities, there is a sharp drop in increase of new Covid-19 cases, from the peak of daily increase 304,190 new cases on January 8 to 28,435 cases yesterday – a humongous drop of 91%!
In fact, in the United States yesterday, 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.”
Even India has fallen from the peak of 414,433 cases on May 6 to 276,261 today (May 20) – a sharp drop of 34% in a matter of a fortnight.
What is more unacceptable to Malaysians is that we are even losing out to UK, Italy and Spain, European countries which had been such catastrophes last year in the Covid-19 pandemic. Yesterday’s daily increase of new Covid-19 cases for UK were 2,696 cases, Italy 5,506 cases and Spain 6,080 cases as compared to Malaysia new Covid-19 cases of 6,806 cases.
Malaysia holds the dubious record of being ranked No. 42 among nations in the world with the most cumulative total of Covid-19 cases, but we hold the more dubious record of being ranked No. 12 among countries with the most daily increase of new Covid-19 cases – after India (276,261 new cases), Brazil (79,706), Argentina (39,651), USA (28,435), France (19,050), Colombia (16,579). Iran (12,789), Germany (11,881), Turkey (11.553), Nepal (8,604) and Russia (7,920).
At the present rate of daily increase of new Covid-19 cases, Malaysia will overtake Morocco and Lebanon to be ranked No. 40 in the world for cumulative total of Covid-19 cases by the end of the month.
The de facto Law Minister Takiyuddin Hassan said in Kota Bharu today that the National Security Council (NSC) will meet in Kuala Lumpur tomorrow to decide whether to implement "total lockdown" to stem the spread of Covid-19.
The NSC had been most irresponsible to delay meeting until tomorrow as the deterioration of the Covid-19 situation had been developing for the past fortnight.
The NSC must accept that the declaration of emergency on January 12 had been a failure and the wrong antidote for the Covid-19 pandemic, and ideally, it should act on my two proposals for a new start in the war against Covid-19 pandemic, viz:
Firstly, convene Parliament and the State Assemblies to establish a parliamentary and State Assembly 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, to end all Covid-19 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” as well as to end all repression and harassment of journalists, protest leaders and various other critics of the government.
This should be on the agenda of the NSC tomorrow.
At the minimum, the NSC should declare that it has no objection to the proposal of a meeting of all MPs and SAs in Johore as proposed by the Sultan of Johore on the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Johore Mentri Besar should spring into action to convene a meeting of all Johore MPs and SAs on the Covid-19 pandemic by the end of the month.