#kerajaangagal72 – Vaccines may not be the silver bullet to end the Covid-19 pandemic but it is undoubtedly a game-changer as seen by the examples of USA and UK
Malaysia is having the worst of both worlds in the Covid-19 pandemic.
During the first 12 months of the pandemic, when the United States and the European nations were the worst-hit nations, Malaysia climbed from the ranking of No. 83 in November 2020 to be ranked No. 42 among nations with the most cumulative total of Covid-19 cases.
Now, when the game-changing impact of vaccination is causing a reversal of fortunes, as illustrated by the latest Bloomberg Covid Resilience Ranking (May 2021), providing a monthly snapshot of the best and worst places in the coronavirus era, Asia appears to be losing its edge with India overtaking the United States as the worst performing nation in the world in the Covid-19 pandemic.
Last month’s No. 1 – Singapore - slipped in May after a new flare-up, joining other Asian economies that had been lauded for nailing the virus. Taiwan and Japan dropped out of the top 10 amid sluggish inoculation drives and resurgent cases, while some of the world’s fiercest outbreaks held down places in Southeast and South Asia.
Overall, Asia accounted for seven of the biggest declines this month.
In contrast, the U.S. and parts of Europe have been steadily climbing up the ranking as the pandemic slowly recedes there. With vaccine protection growing, they’re reopening travel, scrapping mask mandates and looking to leave Covid-19 behind.
The U.K. jumped seven spots to 11th, and the U.S. is now at No. 13 in the Bloomberg Covid Resilience Ranking of May 2021.
But Malaysia did not benefit from the change of fortunes in the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact, we performed even worse than India and Indonesia.
India reached a peak of daily increase of 414,422 new Covid-19 cases on May 6, it had which had fallen by more than 40 per cent in the last five days in daily increase of new Covd-19 cases, while for the 15th consecutive day, Malaysia had a higher daily increase of new Covid-19 cases than Indonesia, which has about nine times the population of Malaysia!
Yesterday, Malaysia broke the record of daily increase of new Covid-19 cases with 7,478 new cases, bringing the cumulative total of Covid-19 cases to 533,367 cases and 2,432 Covid-19 deaths.
We maintain our position as the tenth in the world in terms of Covid-19 cases reported yesterday, except for France replacing Nepal in the first nine countries with the highest number of daily increase of new Covid-19 cases (worldometer) , viz:
- India – 211,553 daily cases
- Brazil - 78,714
- Argentina - 35,399
- Colombia ` 23,487
- United States - 20,183
- France - 12,646
- Iran - 10,468
- Turkey - 8,736
- Russia - 8,373
- Malaysia - 7,478
With the exception of Brazil, Argentina and Colombia, the other six nations of India, United States, France, Iran, Turkey and Russia have passed their peak but Malaysia is still on the upsurge to find the peak on the Covid-19 curve.
The Covid-19 vaccines may not be a silver bullet to end the Covid-19 pandemic but it is undoubtedly a game-changer as seen by the example of United States and United Kingdom.
It has been reported that the New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will be bringing the city’s mobile vaccination units to beaches and parks to ramp up the vaccination rollout.
With the goal of making the vaccine more accessible to priority populations, New York City is expanding the number of walk-in vaccine sites for the elderly population city-wide.
This is what all the Malaysian states and districts should emulate, and I reiterate my call to ramp up and complete the national vaccination rollout by Malaysia Day on Sept. 16.
The Yang di Pertuan Agong should host an All-Party and All-NGOs conference to ramp up both the Find-Test-Trace-Isolate-Support (FTTIS) programme and the national vaccination rollout.