Congrats to KJ for reaching a new low for daily new Covid-19 cases when 4,343 Covid-19 cases and 35 Covid-19 deaths were recorded yesterday, but why is the reduction of daily new Covid-19 cases and daily Covid-19 deaths such an agonisingly slow process as compared to other countries like Indonesia and India?

Congrats to the Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin for reaching a new low for daily new Covid-19 cases when 4,343 Covid-19 cases and 35 Covid-19 deaths were recorded in Malaysia yesterday, but why is the reduction of daily new Covid-19 cases and daily Covid-19 deaths such an agonisingly slow process as compared to other countries like Indonesia and India?

For daily new Covid-19 cases, Malaysia has fallen from the peak of 24,599 cases on August 26 to 4,343 cases yesterday, while daily Covid-19 deaths have fallen from the peak of 592 deaths recorded on Sept. 11 to 35 deaths yesterday – but still a long way from double-digit figure for daily new Covid-19 cases and single-digit number for daily Covid-19 deaths for Malaysia “to live with Covid”.

At this rate of reduction, it will be impossible for Khairy to achieve the 100-Day target of less than 500 new Covid-19 cases a day by Dec. 7, 2021.

Indonesia is far ahead of Malaysia in the reduction of daily new Covid-19 cases – for it has been recording for a consecutive 24-days for daily new Covid-19 cases in triple-digit numbers, and for a longer period of 38 consecutive days, recording double-digit figure for Covid-19 deaths.

Yesterday, Indonesia recorded 444 new Covid-19 cases and 11 Covid-19 deaths as compared to 4,343 cases and 35 Covid-19 deaths for Malaysia – indicating that Indonesia will beat Malaysia in first recording single-digit daily deaths in the next few days.

The comparison with India, which has over 43 times’ the population of Malaysia, is even more stark – as India has yesterday reduced its daily new Covid-19 cases to 11,648 (or 2.8% of its daily peak of 414,433 cases of May 6, 2021) and 256 daily Covid-19 deaths (or 5% of its daily peak of 5,015 Covid-19 deaths on May 23, 2021).

In contrast, Malaysia had only yesterday reduced to 17.6% of its peak of daily new cases and come down to 6% of its peak of daily Covid-19 deaths.

Khairy should convene an urgent meeting of public and private health experts to find out how Malaysia can get better and faster results in ending Malaysia’s long third wave since September last year by Khairy’s first 100 days on Dec. 7, 2021.